Brightest Crayon
by OughtaKnowBetter
Summary: Why was Charlie's business card found in a murdered man's hand? Complete story.
1. Chapter 1

Brightest Crayon

Brightest Crayon

By OughtaKnowBetter

* * *

Disclaimer: if you haven't figured it out by now, don't expect me to sympathize

A/N: This work contains several original characters with disabilities. No doubt some readers will find the portrayals politically incorrect as well as insensitive. That was not the intent. The goal was to portray them as _people_ first, people with both good and bad qualities, just like the rest of us whose short-comings may be less obvious. It will be up to you to decide how successful I was in the attempt, and whether or not I told a good story...

* * *

_Run!_

Stumble, catch the railing, haul upward, keep on running.

Flee.

xxxxxxx

Catch the breath. Breathe again, try to stay quiet. Try to hide.

Little whimpers leaking out of the mouth like helpless children torn away from Mother.

Not quiet enough.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Run again. No use to hide. Doesn't work. Too stupid to hide. Too stupid to find a hidey hole. That's what everyone says. That's what everyone tells me. That's what Mother tells me. Not smart, like

him.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Too stupid to live.

* * *

David Sinclair straightened himself up, regret evident in the set of his shoulders. "Damn shame," he told the police detective that had called him in. "The kid looks pretty young, mid-twenties or so. Damn shame," he repeated, "but I'm thinking there's nothing here for the FBI. I'll release the case pending the coroner's report. That good enough for you?"

There was nothing to indicate that a crime had taken place—at least, nothing illegal. What was criminal was that the accident had occurred in the first place. No one ought to trip down a long flight of stairs and break his neck as this young man had done. It was a back staircase, dusty around the edges, and the stairs were made of solid concrete with no forgiveness for a momentary clumsiness. A smear of blood graced the fifth step up where the victim's mouth had come in contact with it, then a larger dribbling onto the equally gray landing where the victim lay sprawled in a position not achievable by the living. Forensics was already snapping pictures , and the M.E. had vacated the scene after pronouncing, directing the body to be removed for a routine autopsy to be scheduled whenever he got around to it in between all the criminal homicides that took priority. It was crowded on the landing, so David remained on the next flight heading down, the LAPD police detective beside him.

Calling in the FBI was regulation for a place like this, an industrial chemicals research facility with ties to the military. If it hadn't been for those ties, David reflected, then he'd be at home getting ready to turn in for the night and this would have been all LAPD's headache. He sighed, glad that he'd restrained his initial impulse to notify his boss. FBI regs said that he should have—technically, he was out on a case—but this was just procedure and nothing worth bugging an exhausted and over-worked Don Eppes. There wasn't anything more here than a tragic accident. Notifying Special Agent Eppes could wait until morning. A kid, part of the cleaning crew that worked late into the night, had tripped over his own feet and taken a header that had ended up breaking his neck. David was no doctor, but it wouldn't surprise him to see the coroner's report say that death was all but instantaneous.

Still, regs were regs. He could release the scene to LAPD, but closing the 'case' would wait until he'd seen the autopsy report and could give it the stamp of approval. As overworked as the M.E.'s department was, that could be another week. David mentally shrugged; what was one more manila file folder on his own desk?

David eyeballed the kid's name tag: Reuben Magenbrot. The face on the victim matched the face on the bar-coded identification badge, and David cringed. To add insult to injury, it was clear that the victim had Down's Syndrome. The heavy eyelids and rounded features were a complete giveaway, and he wondered morbidly if the genetic disorder had given poor Reuben Magenbrot the clumsiness that had resulted in his death. It seemed unfair, somehow, that Life had conspired to throw so much against an innocent man. He turned to the LAPD detective. "Anybody notify his family?"

The detective shrugged noncommittally, and David looked at the man's own badge: Raymond Votta.

Votta sighed. "Lives at a boarding house, some place for guys with a screw loose. We're not finding any family, just a caretaker. I've sent a uni to take care of it."

Right. Send a uniformed patrol man, probably nothing more than a kid himself, to notify some underpaid worker at a state sponsored facility in the community that he had one less problem to deal with, at least until the state could fill the bed with another poor soul. _There are times when this job really sucks, you know that, Sinclair?_

Something white caught David's eye, shimmering dully in the overhead light that grudgingly illuminated the stairwell. He allowed his focus to shift onto the white; looking at the dead face made him uncomfortable.

Then he grew interested. "What's that?"

"What's what?"

"This." David pulled on a pair of gloves to pluck the white object from the victim's hand. It was a business card. David turned it over to read the name, and sucked in his breath.

"Do you mind? Gotta slab the body." One of the attendants pushed David out of his path, eager to get the job over and done with so that he could return to his real avocation of writing the Great American Novel on his coffee breaks.

Votta tried to peek at the name that had David so worked up. "That mean something to you? That guy something special? It's for damn sure that this card doesn't belong to our vic here."

"Yeah, this name means something to me." It meant a long, caffeine-laden night. It meant waking up his boss, Don Eppes. It meant harassing the M.E. into doing a fast autopsy at one AM Wednesday morning.

It meant pulling Professor Charles Eppes into an interrogation to find out just why his business card was in the hand of a dead man in a complex filled with military secrets.

* * *

To say that he felt like _crap_ was giving manure too much credit.

Don Eppes, despite the gravity of the situation, would have cheerfully gone straight back home and sought out his pillow for comfort. Sleep had been on the docket, and he had intended to avail himself of the necessity—not even a pleasure, right now, just an overwhelming need to remove the lactic acid from his body immediately—for a minimum of twenty-four hours, which was how long everyone had estimated that the D.A.'s office would need to process the various charges and set up the initial court hearings for the now closed case. Going undercover had been a risky, gutsy move that had paid off by bringing in one of the more notorious hit men in the country. The man had been brought in to do a job, and now he would never leave the state unless some idiot reduced his sentence for good behavior. Of course, if that happened, there were plenty of other states in the nation who would be willing, even eager, to request extradition so that the man could then begin to serve time for crimes committed in that particular town.

Getting close to the man had been tough, and Don's nerves had been on edge for the entire week that he was under. Three times he'd thought that his cover had been blown, and the third time he had been looking at the wrong end of a gun barrel when Colby had kicked in the door just before the man went to pull the trigger. The only reason he was alive today—and he used the term 'alive' guardedly, considering his present inability to reason through lack of sleep—was the competence of his team. There was already a celebratory dinner, Don's treat, planned at the Le Cote de Raison D'Etre downtown, date to be determined after Don woke up.

Well, he was awake, and he wasn't in the mood to set up dinner, even if the restaurant was willing to accept reservations phoned in at something shy of four AM. He inhaled another large swallow of coffee, praying that the caffeine would serve as a sleep substitute for the next several hours. Don decided that standing would be the best position to maintain for this briefing. Sitting down behind his desk might result in a series of over-loud snores.

He glanced automatically at his watch. "We have to hold off on talking to Charlie," he announced, then realized that he'd already told his team that Charlie was flying back from a conference on the East coast on a red eye. His brother would be arriving around eight in the morning, and their father had already been hired as the driver to pick him up and deliver him straight to CalSci with a ten o'clock class to teach. Charlie hadn't been happy about the timing, but hadn't been able to get an earlier flight. Don remembered listening to Charlie grouch over the airline schedules, and then had put it out of his mind to work on his case. That had taken up all of Don's attention.

_Until now_. Don stifled a yawn, and tried to screw his attention to the task at hand. "Run it down for me," he requested, hoping that this time he'd actually be able to comprehend what he was being told.

David refrained from any comments that might get him fired. "Lavozzi Industries," he began. "It's a chemical research firm, specializing in inorganic chemicals with an eye toward sterilization procedures. They provide new ways for manufacturing companies to clean old equipment so that the equipment can be reused. Apparently there's a big market in designing cleaning solutions that do the job and can either be reclaimed or safely disposed of in an environmentally friendly fashion. This research," he added, for Don's benefit, "is also of use to the military. Some of the cleaning solutions are being tested on equipment being used in Iraq, and may help to keep the engines from getting clogged by the fine dust flying through the air. One of the major causes of equipment failure in that part of the world is that small particles of dirt are getting into the moving parts of various engines, causing them to seize. The armed forces are _very_ interested in anything that will help their equipment to continue to function until the expected expiration date."

"So that's the military connection," Megan murmured. At four in the morning she too was sleepy, and she hadn't been wired tighter than tympani for the last few days. Don still found it within himself to empathize. "Anything to suggest that this wasn't an accident, plain and simple? Just because we found Charlie's business card there doesn't mean that a crime was committed. Accidents happen in research facilities, even ones with governmental contracts."

"Good point." Don wished that it had been made before waking him up two hours earlier. "What does the autopsy say?"

"Not in yet—wait, here it is." Colby pressed the appropriate buttons on his keyboard to allow the report to pop up on the screen. "Whoa. Dr. Ault sounds pissed."

"Colby, it's a report. It's factual."

"Yeah? Trust me on this: he's using strict medical-ese. He does that when he's annoyed over being rushed. I can barely understand what's he's talking about. I don't think any of these words have fewer than six syllables."

"Hit the conclusion, Colby. Does he think this was an accident or not?" If it was, Don was heading straight back to bed, no matter what.

Colby sucked in his breath. Don felt his stomach clench. Adrenalin started to wake him up once again.

"'Subject had apparently engaged in heavy physical activity immediately prior to death'," Colby read out loud. "He goes on to describe a bunch of medical mumbo-jumbo to support his conclusion, then fixes the time of death at ten-twelve PM, give or take an hour."

"So we have a two hour window," Don mused, feeling his mind clear. "What kind of physical activity? Lifting some furniture? Or running for his life?"

"I can narrow that timeline down," David offered. "The night watch called 911 at ten fifty-eight."

"That's good. How about the other end? What time did the victim arrive at the facility?"

David consulted his notes. "No help there, Don. Magenbrot arrived at six fifty nine, just before seven o'clock, with the rest of the crew."

"Last person to see him alive?"

"Don't know yet." David glanced over his notes. "It's a cleaning team from an outfit called Make a Better Day. Chances of getting hold of someone from there before eight is slim."

"Do it, eight o'clock sharp," Don ordered. "The sooner we clear this up, the sooner we can all—" he checked himself. There were three men, all dressed in business formal, all appearing entirely too awake for this hour of the morning. Don didn't recognize any of them, and from the looks on the faces of his team, neither did anyone else. More adrenalin pumped in, threatening to help the coffee burn an ulcer into his gut. There weren't many people who could walk through Headquarters unchallenged, but these were three of them.

Worse, they stopped in front of the room where Don was holding his four AM briefing.

They wasted no time. "Special Agent Don Eppes?" one inquired briskly, his tone not at all in keeping with the hour.

"Right here. And you are—?"

"Drug Enforcement Agency." The man flashed his credentials. "I'm John Bausch, senior investigator. Jerry Gratofsky. Steve Lomb. I understand you got called in for the Lavozzi murder. This is actually our case, so we'll take the evidence off of your hands. What have you got?"

"Hold on here. What do you mean, what have we got? This is FBI jurisdiction," Don protested, all of his instincts aroused. "What have _you_ got?"

"Agent Eppes, we've been working this case for the last two months," Bausch said, trying not to be impatient. "We're not about to give it to you now, just because our primary lead got murdered. This is still our case."

"Wait a minute; back up." Don really _really_ wished that he was more awake. It seemed as though he was going to need a lot more brainpower to get through this than he had anticipated. "Chief suspect? What are you talking about? And how did you find out about this so fast, to come waltzing in here at four o'clock in the morning?"

"Agent Eppes, this is our—"

"Gentlemen." Megan broke in with a knife-edged smile. She gestured at the remaining empty chairs at the other end of the room. "Please, take a seat. It appears that we have a great deal to discuss."


	2. Brightest Crayon 2

It took some arm-twisting to get the DEA agents to come clean, and Don was more than happy to allow Agent Reeves to indulge herself, ably assisted by Agent Sinclair who was growing more and more cranky as night morphed into morning. Don himself felt more than out-classed by the clean-shaven jaws spread around his conference table. All three of his guests were significantly more awake than he was.

The senior agent, Bausch, was also the biggest of the bunch, the tallest one present, aiming for six feet of blond-haired, blue-eyed muscle. He wore his tie tightly around his neck, and Don found himself wondering how the man avoided choking on his coffee when he swallowed. Bausch's opposite number was Jerry Gratofsky, who looked as rumpled as if Columbo was his role model: randomly creased trench coat tossed across the back of his chair in deference to the summer heat, dark hair tousled across his forehead, and a coffee stain on his shirt. No tie. Steve Lomb, the third of their number, fell somewhere in between and a direct hit on mediocre: average height, average weight, average dirty blond hair that might qualify for light brown in the right setting, and thoroughly ignore-able.

Megan spread her hands expansively. "We don't have to play ball, gentlemen. A murder was committed on the grounds of a facility involved in military activities. That makes it FBI jurisdiction. If you don't cooperate with us, we don't cooperate with you, and—frankly—you have more to lose at this point than we do. All we have is a dead body and a new start date. You have two months of effort at stake and all that reputation that goes with it." She leaned back in her chair. "What'll it be, gents? Make a decision. We have work to do. Whether or not that work includes the DEA is up to you."

Bausch looked at his two underlings. There was a grim sigh in there, but he manfully suppressed it. "You win."

"We both win," Megan soothed. "We want this to be a win-win situation. We want to catch a murderer, and you want to stop a drug flow, right?"

Bausch nodded. "That's right. Okay; here's what we have, and it's taken us two long months to get this far." He settled himself onto the chair, prepared for a long discussion. "I'm not going to rehash old news. Drugs flow into L.A. like water along the Mississippi; we all know that." Bausch nodded slowly, deciding how to present his information on the case itself. "A little over two months ago, we came across a lead. LAPD busted a woman named Loretta Lindt, who worked for Lavozzi Industries."

"Don't tell me; let me guess. They busted her on possession."

"Correct, Agent Granger."

"And Ms. Lindt is no longer working for Lavozzi."

"Again, correct." Bausch inclined his head. "They got her dead to rights. There was no way to crawl out of this one."

"She pled a deal." David could see where this one was going. "She finger someone?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of?" He _so _did not have time for this. Don Eppes was _tired_.

"She told us how it worked. She hired this company to clean her house at exorbitant rates, and in return, a little packet of white sugar arrived in her desk drawer at work at Lavozzi Industries. She said she had no idea of who put it there, how it got into the building past Security—you know the drill."

"What was the cleaning company?"

"Make a Better Day," Bausch told him.

"The same—?"

"You got it. The same cleaning company that employed Reuben Magenbrot. Which is what led us to Lavozzi Industries."

Don nodded. It was making sense, and Don privately thought that he was doing pretty well to recognize that fact at this hour. "So you investigated, and discovered that Ms. Lindt wasn't the only person getting her house cleaned and her nose powdered."

"Right. We've identified two more, both low level researchers, and have been keeping them under surveillance."

"And you found—?"

Bausch wasn't happy. "Nothing. The surveillance cameras haven't given us squat. The Better Day people come in every night and clean, and not one of 'em does anything out of the ordinary. There's nothing that we can tag as suspicious. Damn cameras."

"You think you've been made?"

Bausch shrugged. "I don't see how, but I don't have a better explanation."

Don had more questions. "Why'd you pick on what's his name? Magenbrot?"

"I have a hard time believing that he's a viable suspect," David added dryly.

"Yeah, well, we did, too," Gratofsky admitted, "but there's no one better. He had access to all the people that we identified as users, and he was there on the premises every time we heard that a drop was made. He fit on most of the parameters. A couple of the other cleaning people did, too, but not as well."

"Most?" Don pounced on the word. "Most of the parameters, but not all?"

"That's right, Eppes," Bausch said irritably. "I interviewed him myself, trying to shake something loose. You saw him; he was a moron, needed somebody to hold his hand to cross the street. There was no way he could have handled something like this. He had the IQ of a turnip."

More than one FBI agent winced. Bausch didn't notice. "We went into that Better Day company, looked around, got nowhere," he admitted. "They may make a practice of hiring dimwits, but they got plenty of sharp knives up at the top. Their lawyers had ours spinning their wheels before the ink was dry on the subpoenas. We were able to look at their employment records, and then we got shoved out. Not enough evidence to dig any further."

Okay, Bausch had the political correctness of a toadstool and that was insulting to toadstools, but he still had the info that Don and his team needed. "What did the Better Day employment records tell you?"

"Not much," Bausch replied. "Company's been around for a little under five years, makes a practice of hiring the disabled to fill in as many positions as possible. They carry a great benefits package, is what a couple of 'em told me, said that it was really a high priority for everyone around there because most of 'em would need health care a lot more than the average Joe." He snorted. "Not too many able-bodied at that place. Wish they would be guilty. Wouldn't have to run far to pick 'em up."

"You didn't find anything?" Don wanted to be certain.

"Nope." Then Bausch turned it around. "We gave you what we have, Eppes; now it's your turn. What've you got?"

"We've got a dead body," Don returned dryly. "We've got a victim that could be from an accident, or it could be murder. We're still trying to determine that. The autopsy report is pending; we've gotten the preliminary that gives us a big fat 'maybe'." He looked at the clock on the wall. "It's six in the morning, gentlemen, and nothing is open for business. We'll take a two hour break and reconvene at eight." He started to haul his aching body upward.

Bausch wasn't finished. "What about that lead, Eppes?"

Don halted. "What lead?"

Bausch's body language screamed: _holding out on us?_ But the DEA agent kept his voice steady. "Magenbrot had a business card in his hand, Eppes. In my book, that's a lead. You get pushed down the stairs and break your neck, you're not likely to be carrying a book back to the library. That's assuming this kid could read," he added. "Whose card was it, Eppes? Let's haul the guy in for questioning."

"That won't be necessary," Don told him. "He's not involved."

"Oh, yeah? You've known about this case all of two hours, and you can tell that already?"

Don refused to let Bausch get under his skin. "Yes, I can tell that already. Dead end, Bausch."

"Really? Who was it, Eppes?"

Don looked Bausch straight in the eye. "Dr. Charles Eppes. He's a professor at CalSci."

"A relative?" _Someone you're trying to cover up for?_

"My brother."

"Ah." A world of insinuation in the single syllable.

It felt good to deliver the next line. "My brother," Don stated, "is out of town at the moment, at a conference in New York. He's been there all week long. He will be arriving home in about two hours at LAX."

Bausch covered over his disappointment. "Guess he's not the one with his hands dirty, then."

"Guess he's not."

"I want in on his questioning, Eppes." _Because no matter how good a job you do, Mr. FBI, it's gonna look like crap on a report. Questioning your own brother? Give me a break_.

"Wouldn't have it any other way, Agent Bausch."

* * *

"Don? Don?"

"Huh?" It was tough, but Don wrenched open his eyes. "Huh? What time is it?"

"Almost seven thirty, Don." Megan moved back, satisfied that Don was now almost conscious.

Don rubbed at his eyes. The hour between then and now had been entirely too short to assuage his need for sleep, but it would have to do. There was a case, and it involved Charlie, and it involved the DEA with an ass for an agent, and he'd better get his own ass in gear if he didn't want this to turn into something really vile.

"Don, I can go pick Charlie up at the airport," Megan offered.

Don blinked. It was tempting. In fact, there was no reason why Megan couldn't head to LAX to get Charlie and bring him back here. With luck, they could question Charlie about the victim in Lavozzi Industries and still get him over to CalSci to teach his ten o'clock class. "Sounds good," he said, hoping that he hadn't taken too long to think it over and trying to goose his brain into working again. "Do that. I'll call my dad and tell him not to go. Where are David and Colby?"

"They're checking out the victim's residence, seeing if there's anything there for a lead," Megan said, adding, "the three from the DEA said something about getting coffee that was worth drinking."

"Wonderful," Don muttered. "Where's the—"

"—phone?" Megan asked cheerily, handing the receiver to him. "Need the number?"

"Hah, hah, Reeves," Don grumbled. He punched in the sequence, listening to the rings.

His father picked up on the third ring. "Hey, Don. Coming over for dinner tonight? I've missed you. Big case?"

"Sort of," Don told him. Don hadn't told his father about the undercover job that he'd just finished and, with luck, never would. His father didn't need to be reminded of how dangerous Don's career was. "It's over now. Listen, don't bother picking up Charlie at LAX, okay? Megan's going to go get him. We need him over here." _Not going to tell you that Charlie is technically a suspect in a murder case. We'll laugh about it tonight, when I'm hopefully awake_.

"Little late, Donnie. Charlie got in last night. The conference let out early, and Charlie was able to catch an earlier flight."

"What?"

"You need him? He's already on his way to CalSci. You can catch him there."

"I'll do that," Don said slowly, thinking as furiously as his sleep-deprived brain would let him. "Uh, Dad?"

"Yes, Don?"

"Uh, what time did Charlie get in last night?" _Please, please let it be after midnight_.

"Um, I'd say about ten or so. Why?"

"Then I guess his plane got in at about nine thirty, right?" _Just enough time to land, get his bag, and head home. Not enough time to commit a murder en route._

"No, actually it got in a little earlier. It took a while to get his luggage, almost an hour. Why the interrogation, Don?"

Don dodged the question. "Look, I gotta go. I gotta go talk to Charlie. I'll see you later tonight, Dad, okay?" He hung up the phone before his father could push, feeling worse by the minute.

"Don?" Megan's eyes showed her worry.

Don grimaced. "My brother just turned back into a viable suspect."


	3. Brightest Crayon 3

The building where the cleaning business Make A Better Day was located opened up at eight o'clock sharp, and Special Agents Sinclair and Granger arrived at eight oh two. The DEA contingent had been left behind to sneer at the poor FBI schmucks who weren't as up to date as themselves.

"Not a problem," David had told the DEA agents congenially, refusing to let them ruffle his feathers now that it was daylight and he had a full tank of caffeine. "Who knows? Maybe we'll pick up something that you didn't." _Dig_.

Colby surveyed the building, noting the clean bricks that soared up for twelve or more stories; Colby didn't bother to count past eight. The pavement in front of the entrance was laid with something that looked suspiciously like pink granite—the expensive type—and the revolving doors seemed to get a window wiping job twice daily.

"The cleaning business pays well," he mentioned to David. "Is that a fountain I see inside the lobby? I could swim a few laps in that thing."

"Yeah, just don't get snagged on the dolphin statue," David told him. "Where is all this money coming from?"

"What say we ask and find out?" Colby pushed through the doors, leading the way to the receptionist's desk. He flashed his ID at the man. "Special Agents Granger and Sinclair, FBI. We need to see someone in charge."

Most people, especially those in relatively low level positions, reacted in a certain way when approached by Federal agents: fear and excitement. They tended to stammer, call for assistance from higher level types, and generally would roll over and play dead if requested and offered a doggie treat.

Not this one. From behind the desk his face grew a frown and his beetle-black eyebrows came together in a ferocious uni-brow. His face turned red enough to qualify for an ad on over-exposure to a bright and sunny beach in the Bahamas.

"Haven't you people harassed us enough? Don't you have enough to do with criminals who can actually get around without wheelchairs? You've already investigated us fourteen times; do you really think you're going to find something this time that you haven't already dug up? I'm calling my congressman!"

"Hey, slow down, dude." Colby had been yelled at by people far louder and meaner than this young man, and wasn't cowed in the slightest; it didn't have the same force if the demand wasn't backed up with a gun. The fact that this young man was in a wheelchair reduced both his mobility and his ferociousness, and Colby was less than impressed. "I don't know what your problem is, but the FBI hasn't been here at all. It's too bad that you've got a problem with some other agencies—" _and I'm not going to tell you that quite likely one of them is working this case with us_—"but we are here for an investigation. Now you can notify somebody in charge and get 'em down here, or my partner and I are going to come back with a warrant and tear this place apart, starting with this fancy desk you're sitting behind. It's your choice, dude."

"Who do you want?" It was nothing short of rude.

"I don't know," Colby said, exasperated. "Somebody who can tell me about Reuben Magenbrot."

"Who?"

"One of your employees," David put in, elected to be the calming influence in the discussion. "He worked here. We need to talk to his boss, or your Human Resources department."

"Why?"

Colby had had enough. He put his elbow onto the desk and leaned in to the obnoxious young receptionist. "Because he's dead, dude."

* * *

_Awake_.

Don desperately needed to be awake for the next several hours. Two hours of sleep in the last forty-eight just didn't cut it. Coming from the undercover job, from being stared at in the face with a nine millimeter, had done wonders for the three hours immediately post job, just enough to get a preliminary report onto the D.A.'s desk, but after that Don had expected a full dose of REM sleep.

It hadn't happened, and it was Charlie's fault. Couldn't his brother keep his business cards decently in the hands of people who needed them, rather than gripped by a murder victim who had no business coming into contact with the math genius? Anyone other than Charlie, and Don could have dumped the case onto someone else until he'd had a chance to catch up on his sleep.

Don turned up the heat on the shower located in the locker room at Headquarters. There wasn't enough time to go home and clean up, not with rush hour traffic the way that it was, and Don—like every other field agent—kept an emergency clean up kit in his desk for just this sort of occasion. The clean smell of soap tickled his nose as he lathered up, rubbing the stuff across his short dark hair, sluicing the grime off from the previous night.

The caffeine started kicking in, and Don promised himself a second dose immediately after emerging from the shower. Plans began to form, and Don almost felt as though he could think once again. One last blast of hot water removed the soap, and Don grabbed his towel.

Target: Professor Charles Eppes.

* * *

As it turned out, it wasn't just Don who showed up at the lecture in the Bryant Building, waiting for class to let out. Megan accompanied him, and, leading the pack, was DEA Agent Gratofsky.

There really wasn't a better option, Don realized. As Charlie's brother, he ought to have removed himself from the case on the spot, turning it over to David and the others, or even to another team entirely. It was skirting the edge of propriety to be on a case when Charlie was a witness, but to have him as a suspect? Don only hoped to have his brother cleared before the Area Director caught wind of what was going on. A reprimand would be a pleasure compared to what he could expect to receive.

Which was why the DEA agent was forging ahead; Don wanted to keep this under control, keep the DEA guys from trying an end run around Don and his team, and that meant pretending to give in on some of these points. Pretend? Hah! Don was biting his tongue, letting Gratofsky blaze the trail that the FBI ought to own. It wouldn't go on forever, Don promised himself, just until they cleared Charlie's name, found out why the victim had Charlie's business card in his hand when he died. Until then, Don could eat tongue sandwich until he bled.

Megan glanced at the clock on her cell. "Another five minutes until class lets out," she informed the DEA agent. "We can hang out here in the fresh air until Charlie's finished, so we can clear this up." _And move on to the _real_ leads_, went unsaid.

Gratofsky looked at the benches sitting outside the building, basking in the sunshine. Though hard, the benches looked inviting. Someone had recently cleaned them, Don noted, and the pigeons hadn't yet rectified the matter. Gratofsky looked back at the Bryant Building of Mathematics. "Out here? What if he runs?"

_Bite the tongue. Bite the tongue_.

"He's not going to run, Agent Gratofsky," Megan reproved. "There's going to be a perfectly rational explanation for this, and your suspicions will lead nowhere. Dr. Eppes is a well-regarded consultant, not only for the FBI but for other important government agencies as well."

"We ought to station someone at the back, in case he bolts," Gratofsky fretted. He didn't let his eyes wander over Don, and he didn't mention just _who_ could cover the back: the brother of the 'suspect'?

"Good luck," Megan told him cheerfully. "There's actually four exits to the Bryant, as far as I know."

"Five, if you count the tunnel underground that heads over to the Math Building," Don couldn't help but add.

"Six. Larry showed me an entrance to the steam tunnels—"

"Okay, okay, I get it," Gratofsky said hastily. "Let's go to the door of the class room. We can wait there."

"Your call," Don said politely, gesturing for Gratofsky to precede him. "One flight up, and to the right."

Professor Charles Eppes was in front of a small class of students who were all busily taking notes, trying to keep up with his lecture. Charlie dashed a quick few chalk marks onto the board and turned around to address the group, his sentences never missing a beat.

"So you see, we can describe, mathematically, the optimal placement of trees in a park, depending on what you have defined as the goal. Is your goal to provide shade, to provide uncluttered vistas, or perhaps some other objective? By Monday, I want to see the preliminary outlines of your park projects, including the equations to delineate your goals and objectives as defined in your individual packets. Remember, I'm handing out extra credit for those who manage to maximize more than one objective. Questions? Yes, Josh."

"Dr. Eppes, you said…" and they were off, the students pelting their professor with half-formulated queries, answering themselves before Charlie could get twelve percent of the response into the air. Through it all Charlie grinned, pleased to see that his students were thinking and using the concepts that they'd learned to solve the problem before Charlie could hand them the next hint.

For his own part, Don never ceased to be amazed at how Charlie interacted with the kids younger than he, and the couple who were older. For a man who had essentially skipped his own childhood in favor of calculus, Charlie showed a remarkable ability to handle the younger minds. Born teacher, Don had to admit. The man loved to see others succeed. Of course, Dr. Eppes liked to succeed himself, but watching the success of others ran it a close second.

There was one student there that caught Don's eye: a young woman, the same average age as the rest of the students, who came equipped with her own chair. Her chair had wheels. It didn't seem to be slowing her down, either physically or mentally. Her hand was up just as much as the rest of the students', jotting down notes and trying to solve the puzzles that were traced onto the overhead projector that Charlie was using. Don wondered what Gratofsky would say about that, hoped the man would wait until all of the students left before making his move.

"How long does this go on?" Gratofsky didn't share Don's appreciation for his brother's talents. "Let's get 'im."

"You can wait for him to finish," Megan reproved. "You've been working on this case for two months; five minutes isn't going to make any difference."

"Says you," Gratofsky grumbled, but he held back by the door. Class was over, and the students stuffed their books and calculators into overloaded backpacks, chattering to each other and eying the Federal agents, wondering what was up. This wasn't the first time Don and Megan had waited outside, and a visit from Professor Eppes' brother frequently meant an interesting real world problem presented in the next class. One of the students, a tall and gangly young man, gave Megan an appreciative and thorough once over. Don refused to grin. _Wonder what you'd say if I told you that Dr. Fleinhardt beat you out, kid?_

The final student gathered up her books, trying to dawdle past the agents and hoping to catch some good gossip to share. Don had seen that, too, and closed the door to the classroom to keep the impending conversation from seeping out through the cracks. Not only Charlie but Charlie's boss, Dr. Finch, would undoubtedly be more than a little displeased by the news that her star professor was suspected of murder. Yeah, clearing Charlie's name quick would be a really good goal in life for the next few minutes.

Charlie greeted them with a smile. "Hey, Don, Megan. What's up?"

Once again, Don let Megan take the lead. "Charlie, this is Agent Gratofsky, from the DEA. Agent Gratofsky, Professor Charles Eppes."

Was it Don's imagination, or did Megan stress Charlie's title just a bit? Just to let the DEA guy know that he wasn't dealing with just any perp off the street?

Charlie stuck out his hand. "Pleasure."

_Not when you find out why he's really here, buddy._

Charlie was oblivious to such nuances. He pulled his hand back, glossing over the fact that Gratofsky hadn't shaken it. Don could read between the lines: Charlie had moved onto the opinion that there was a bit of friction amongst the various agents. _If you only knew…!_

Charlie glanced at his watch. "Don, I've got a two o'clock extra help session that I can't miss. There's a student—"

"This is a little more important than an extra class," Gratofsky broke in.

"Not to this particular student," Professor Eppes told him.

Gratofsky had had enough. "You're coming downtown with me."

"What—?"

"Us," Megan inserted quietly, but firmly. "You need to come with _us_. Charlie, there's been a murder."

"Okay. Can you fill me in on the de—"

"Downtown, Professor Eppes," Gratofsky insisted. "Don't make me cuff you."

"Excuse me?" Charlie was having a hard time believing what he was hearing. "Don, what is this about?"

Finally getting a clue. Don tried for a balance between no nonsense Federal agent and concerned brother. "Charlie, there's been a murder. Your name came up."

"My name? Why? Who was it? Who was murdered?"

This was entirely too public a place. Don moved in to take Charlie's arm. "Chuck, we really need to have this conversation over at my office. Can you get someone to cover for you?"

"I'm not sure—"

"Or you can simply not show up," Gratofsky suggested, in all seriousness. "Let's go, Eppes."

It wasn't clear which Eppes he was referring to.


	4. Brightest Crayon 4

Angry and Obnoxious at the reception desk had summoned someone to escort David and Colby to the CEO's lair, a man very large and lumbering with heavy features. Obnoxious gave the escort very clear, simplistic directions with a sideways glance at the two FBI agents as if expecting David and Colby to somehow try to confuse the issue. Wordlessly the giant turned and walked across the pink granite-tiled floors to the bank of elevators, swiping a card through the reader to summon the elevator, expecting both FBI agents to follow him into the small space and out into the top floors.

Both David and Colby made certain to observe their surroundings, and the upper floors looked to be very similar to what the lobby boasted. The top floor was newly tiled in the same manner as the lobby, and the offices were spacious. The open doors that they passed and looked through showed large windows in each of the offices, some of which looked off into the distant harbor, and all of which had furniture suitable for a quiet evening's get together on matters other than strictly business. The place reeked of money and power. The two FBI agents exchanged glances; sure, there was money to be made in providing a cleaning service, but this looked like the company was charging a king's ransom for the effort.

David tried to probe the man who was leading them forward. "This company looks as though it's doing well," he offered.

Their escort looked at him, intellect barely touching the green eyes. "Huh?"

David slowed it down. "Do you like working here?"

"Uh…yes."

_Okay, progress_. "Have you worked here very long?"

A beam of pride: "Yes."

David smiled encouragingly. "What do you do here?" _Trying answering that with a yes or no, guy!_

More pride: "I show people where to go. I pick things up. I take things from one place to another. Mr. Gideon says I'm good at it. He likes me. He takes good care of me."

"I can see that." David elected to build upon their budding relationship. "How about Reuben Magenbrot? Did you like him?"

"Huh?"

"Reuben Magenbrot. Did you know him?"

Blink. "Nope."

Okay, worth a shot and it passed the time spent walking down the long hallway. Their large escort showed them into the anteroom of a large and tastefully appointed office suite. The FBI agents approached the desk. The young lady sitting behind it had her eyes closed, and her chair was tilted back far enough to qualify as a lounger. She would have made a lovely picture if it weren't for the fact that David and Colby had a job to do and, presumably, she did too. David cleared his throat.

Didn't phase her. Without opening her eyes, she asked, "can I help you?"

"We're here to see your boss."

"Have a seat. He'll be finished in ten minutes."

David pulled out his ID; a wasted move, since her eyes were still closed. "I'm afraid we're going to have to interrupt him. FBI," he added pointedly, since she hadn't yet opened her eyes.

"Have a seat. He'll be finished in ten minutes," she repeated, unconcerned.

_Going too far_. Keeping his voice pleasant, David told her, "He's finished now. You can either announce us, or not. We're going in."

That got to her. "Have some consideration!" she snapped, finally opening her eyes and reaching for the phone. "You people never take the time to understand us, and now you're harassing us. _Again!_" she added, aggrieved.

Beside him, David could feel Colby ready to blow. He intervened before the volcano erupted, giving the girl his full attention. "We are not harassing you or anyone else in this building; we are investigating a murder. This takes precedence over any contract discussion," he said firmly, keeping his own temper in check.

"Murder! What are you talking about?"

"This is a homicide investigation." David wrestled into submission the satisfaction he felt at getting through her annoyed exterior. "We need to speak to your boss, and we can either do it here, _politely_, or we can go downtown."

The girl glared at him. She fumbled with the button on the intercom, finally found it, and tapped in a signal. "He'll see you now."

"Damn right, he will," Colby muttered under his breath. He followed David into the inner office.

The first thought that crossed David Sinclair's mind upon entering Mr. Bartholomew Gideon's office was _how can I get a cake walk job like this?_ The second, following close on the heels of the first, was _I'd be bored stiff_, but that was beside the point. This real issue was that, like his administrative assistant, Gideon too had been taking a nap during working hours. Expensive Italian leathers were propped up on a dark mahogany desk, and the maroon desk chair was in a reclining position, as were Mr. Gideon's eyes.

Clearly this job, in addition to a minimum of stress, gave Gideon a more than adequate lifestyle. In one corner of a room stood an exercise machine that looked capable of removing excess calories without supervision, and there was a large powder room off to one side of the office suite. Out of the corner of his eye, David could see the hygiene facilities beyond that were large enough to be equipped with a small bed in case the desk chair wasn't satisfactory. It would be possible, he reflected, for the CEO to live here in this suite and never leave as long as he could order in food. By the look of the trash receptacle in the corner, that had happened not long ago.

Not important at the moment. David cleared his throat.

They got a better response this time: Gideon opened his eyes and swung his feet down off of his desk. "Gentlemen," he greeted the agents. "Jennifer said something about a homicide investigation? I take it this is not simply an expansion of the DEA's desperate attempts to involve us in some illegal and unlikely scheme they are continually concocting."

"No, sir." David flashed his ID for the third time that day. "Special Agents Sinclair and Granger, from the FBI. We are here on a different matter." _I'm not going to share with you that the DEA is breathing down our neck, wanting to take over. At least, not yet will I share_. "One of your employees by the name of Reuben Magenbrot was found dead at Lavozzi Industries."

That hit home. Both agents could see the sudden pang in Gideon's face. "Ben?" he asked, sorrow in his voice. "Just a kid, with blond hair and a grin from ear to ear?"

"I can confirm the blond hair." David extended a hand with a picture taken from the M.E.'s files. It was one of the neater ones, one that didn't show the victim with unnatural angles in his pose. This picture had been taken after someone had had the decency to rearrange the features into something approaching a peaceful sleep.

It only took one quick glance. "That's Ben," Gideon confirmed, looking away. He gave himself a moment. "Dammit."

"You knew him?"

"I know all my employees." It took more than a single moment to get himself under control. Gideon managed it in three. "How did it happen?"

"He apparently fell down a flight of stairs," David said, keeping the emotion out of his voice, watching Gideon for the expected responses. Colby, he knew, was scanning any paper on the desk for a hint of anything else.

Gideon furrowed his brows. "You said murder. Was he pushed?"

"We're still determining if it was an accident or not, Mr. Gideon. There are certain aspects to this case that are troubling."

"Ah." Now it was clear. "The DEA has been in touch, and has convinced you that Make A Better Day is a hub for all the drugs coming through Los Angeles and that my employees are all pushers, shoving drugs up the noses of street kids and teenagers." Gideon started getting angry. "Let me tell you, whatever your name is. Let me tell you loud and clear: we had nothing to do with this. _Ben Magenbrot_ had nothing to do with this either! The kid had the smarts of a six year old! It wasn't too long ago, _detective_, that the proper medical term for someone like Ben would have been _moron_! When you can tell me how someone like _that_ could dream up a scheme to push drugs through the streets of L.A. or a company as sophisticated as Lavozzi Industries, _then_ you can come here and investigate. Until then, get out of my office!"

"You're jumping to conclusions," David said, unmoved. "You're assuming that we're here to investigate drugs."

"What else would you be here for? I don't see a contract in your hands to engage us to clean your headquarters."

"Lavozzi Industries has ties to the military," David reminded him. "Any death, accidental or suspicious, requires an investigation. We are currently conducting that investigation. Your cooperation would be appreciated." _Or required under pain of having your lucrative contract with a military affiliated company cancelled_, he left hanging in the air.

"Then, investigate." Gideon spread his hands widely, an angry invitation. "See what you can find that the DEA couldn't in four separate investigations. Look through the files, gentlemen, then leave us alone to make an honest living."

"We can start right here." David made himself comfortable in the chair, Colby paying attention beside him. David didn't need to adjust his position but he did need to make the point that the FBI wasn't going to be anything less than thorough, and on the first go around. "You say that you knew Reuben Magenbrot. How well?"

"As well as I know all of my employees. I personally hired him."

"Did you do a background check?"

"Of course. All of my field employees are bonded. That's required."

"And—?" David prodded.

"You can look up his files, Agent Sinclair," Gideon told him, proving that he really did remember David's name. "He either had no arrests or convictions, or the ones that he had were minor."

"Then you do employ people with a history of trouble with the law."

"Yes, Agent Sinclair, I do." Gideon wasn't apologizing. "Several of us have mental disorders, and those mental disorders are very poorly dealt with by society. We get thrown in jail for having hallucinations, instead of receiving medical care. Shall we talk about the simple things, like how many people with excellent health park in handicapped parking because they're too lazy to be considerate of others who aren't as fortunate?" He waved his hands at his surroundings, taking in the total of the building. "This is a unique company, gentlemen. This company was founded on the principle that people with disabilities are entitled to the same lifestyles as those without. So we _only_ hire people with disabilities, and then we work to pair people up to compensate for what life has done to us. You met Darren?"

David blinked. "Who?"

"The man who escorted you up here. Didn't you bother to ask his name?" Gideon shook his head in disgust. "Darren is one of my more valuable employees. Several of us are unable to lift large objects, unable to walk for any great distance. Darren does that for us. In return, we provide the intellectual structure that he needs. We help him spend his salary wisely, make sure that he has a home to go to, eats proper food, and has good medical care. Do you know how much we spend on health care benefits?" he added dryly. "The insurance companies take one look at us, and jack up the premiums."

"I can imagine." David recognized the ploy: Gideon was trying to distract them from the issue at hand. He chose not to let him. "How long did Magenbrot work for this company?"

Gideon keyboarded the information on his computer. "Just shy of four years. A model employee and a hard worker; only called out sick when he needed to."

"When he needed to? How often was that?"

"We don't penalize our employees for requiring health care, Agent Sinclair," Gideon reproved. "As a company, we believe—"

"Yes, I understand that you have a very enlightened view of the work place," David interrupted. This was getting very old, very fast. "How often did Magenbrot call out sick?"

Gideon glared. David looked back at him, unmoved. With a sigh, Gideon again consulted his computer. "Three weeks four months ago. Nothing since then. Satisfied?"

"Was his work satisfactory?"

"Very. Ben was one of our best employees. We can—could—always count on him."

"Did he seem to be living beyond his means?"

"We pay our people a fair living wage, Agent Sinclair—"

"Just answer the question, Mr. Gideon." Colby too was getting fed up.

Another glare. "No."

Clearly they weren't going to get any further in this room. Getting a glance of agreement from Colby, David turned back to Gideon. "We'll need to speak with Mr. Magenbrot's supervisor, and the crew that he worked with."

"No."

"Mr. Gideon—"

"Have some consideration," Gideon snapped. "They work the night shift, for heaven's sake! They're sleeping!"

Enough was enough. David Sinclair fixed the CEO with a stern eye. "Mr. Gideon, this is national security. This could have implications far beyond this office. And, for your information, I _personally_ have been awake for more than twenty-four hours, trying to ensure the safety of this country which includes you and all of your employees. At this moment, I am very seriously considering slapping you with a charge of obstruction. Now, you can either cooperate and give us the names and addresses of the employees who work at Lavozzi Industries, or we will return with two warrants: one for the information we require and the other for your arrest. Have I made myself clear?"

Information finally in hand, both David and Colby left the Make a Better Day building with a new and heartfelt sympathy for DEA agents Bausch, Gratofsky, and Lomb.

* * *

_Hard ass_. That was the title for Bausch: hard ass. Don kept his arms folded, fearing that if he let them loose, they'd take a poke at someone whose last name began with 'B'.

The voices came through clearly from the interrogation chamber where Charlie sat, DEA Agent John Bausch pacing in front of him and looming down over his kid brother. Don stared in from behind the one way mirror, watching the whole question and answer period go down with Megan at his side, regretting the necessity that kept them both outside the room. This was an FBI case, dammit! Don himself ought to be the one conducting the interrogation—or at least, Megan—instead of the DEA man. But one hint of impropriety, one whisper of family connections seeping through, and the careers of both Eppes boys would be finished, not to mention the black mark on the L.A. FBI unit as a whole.

Besides, Charlie was innocent. Of that, there was no question. There were a lot of things that Don could accuse Charlie of doing, going all the way back to losing the three essential Lego pieces to Don's ultra-nuclear ray gun that could have destroyed the sun going nova and saved the entire galaxy from destruction when they were eight and four, but murdering a twenty-something year old kid was not one of them. There would be a rational explanation for Charlie's business card being found in the murder victim's hand, and it would be better for all of them if the DEA was the one who discovered it. Then Don and his team could politely shove Bausch and his team out of the way so that they could do some real work.

"He can do this, Don," Megan told him quietly. "He's innocent; he has nothing to fear. Right?"

"Right." Never mind all the 'convicts' who were released years later when new evidence turned up showing that they were wrongly convicted. Don stared through the one way mirror.

Charlie _looked_ at him. Even though he couldn't see his older brother, he knew that he was there. Charlie had been on Don's side of the mirror plenty of times, and he knew exactly what was going on.

Nervous. Not scared, exactly; Charlie knew that he had nothing to be scared about because he wasn't guilty. One the other hand, he also knew that this wasn't exactly standard procedure for an FBI consultant. Charlie was used to being on the outside, looking in, and describing what he saw in mathematical terms.

This was different. This was real life, and Charlie was in the middle of it.

Don watched as Bausch placed both hands on the table in front of Charlie. "What's the connection between you and Reuben Magenbrot?"

"I've never heard that name before in my life," Charlie returned evenly.

"Care to explain how your business card got into his dead hand?" Bausch's face was less than three inches away from Charlie's, invading the mathematician's personal space with a vengeance. Don wanted to jump through the one way mirror.

"You are very well aware that I have no idea how that happened," Charlie said, continuing to keep his temper. "If I haven't heard of that person, how would I be able to explain his having my card?"

"Then you're saying that you don't know him."

"Yes." Charlie himself folded his arms in a gesture of finality.

"Then you swear that you've never seen this man before." Bausch slapped down an eight by ten glossy of the victim onto the table in front of Charlie. Don winced; even through the window he could see that it was the worst one, the one showing the Magenbrot kid crumbled at the bottom of the staircase, blood dribbling out of his mouth. Dammit, the DEA man could have cleaned it up for Charlie! There was no reason to try to rattle him. Even looking at things from the most skeptical point of view, Charlie as a suspect was a long shot. Hell, there wasn't even proof positive that this was a murder! The kid legitimately could have tripped and fallen down the stairs.

Charlie paled, and swallowed hard. His voice was thick when he told Bausch, "I can't see his face."

"Oh, sorry, professor," Bausch sneered. He made a show of selecting another photo from the file in his hand. "Will this help?"

There was no mistaking where this head shot came from: post autopsy. The skin had that waxy tone that said all of the blood had been drained away in order to better examine the underlying tissue, and the top of the skull had been removed in order to assess the damage done to the brain. The pieces had been put back together but it would take all of a mortician's skill to make the body presentable for an open casket ceremony.

It got to Charlie. He closed his eyes, breathing carefully through his nose, trying not to lose control of himself.

"Well, professor? Know this kid now that you've seen his face?"

"Yes." Don could barely understand what his brother was saying, and his stomach sank. _Charlie knew this victim? How?_ Charlie gulped, squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment, then he pushed the offending photo away, trying not to look. "I've seen him."

"Where?" Bausch wasn't stopping.

"My classroom." Another hard swallow. "He's…"

"Don't try and tell me that he's one of your students, professor." Bausch got into Charlie's face again. "The kid had the IQ of a rutabaga. He didn't belong there."

"He…" Charlie tuned the DEA agent out for several long moments, getting hold of himself, his hands clasped tightly in his lap. "I never knew his name. He would stand, or sit in the back of the room, and he'd always leave before the end of my lecture. I never knew his name," Charlie repeated, closing his eyes once more.

Don hated the way Charlie's hand trembled; it was a sure sign that his brother wasn't dealing well. Don didn't blame him one bit; it was a shock to find out that someone you'd known—or sort of known, since Charlie hadn't been aware of the boy's name—was dead and that it possibly was murder. And that he was being accused of the boy's murder as well.

"You can prove that," Bausch demanded, "that you didn't know him? That you didn't know his name?"

Charlie nodded, not trusting his voice. He coughed, trying to make the vocal cords behave. "It was usually my two hundred level probability and statistics class, the one where I try to work in a lot of demonstrations. I think he liked to watch things fly into the air, like the catapult example for ballistics calculations."

"You can prove it?" Bausch repeated.

Another nod. "My students would have seen him." Charlie tried to look at the picture without seeing it. "You say that he was… was…"

"That's right, professor," Bausch said. Don could see the disappointment in the agent's posture, disappointment that he couldn't immediately pin the murder onto an FBI agent's brother. "He was a mental defective. Want to tell me why he was hanging around your class for geniuses?"

"I…I thought that maybe he was part of the maintenance staff," Charlie stammered. He looked up. "Maybe that was how he got hold of my card. Maybe he was cleaning, and—"

"Professor, that kid had nothing whatsoever to do with CalSci," Bausch interrupted. "As far as I can tell, he didn't belong within twenty miles of the place. Why was he there, professor?"

Charlie got hold of himself. "I don't know. I can't tell you what I don't know. He came to my classes and sat or stood at the exit, listening. He never participated; he never spoke to me. I don't know anything about him except for that."

Bausch tried a new tack. "Where were you from nine-thirty to ten-thirty last night?"

"I flew in from Philadelphia—"

"Try again, Eppes. Your flight arrived just after eight-thirty. Plenty of time to hike over to Lavozzi Industries and off someone."

"My luggage was delayed—"

"Prove it," Bausch challenged. "Give me a reason to believe that you're telling the truth."

Inspiration hit. "My father," Charlie said. "My father picked me up. He can verify that I arrived just after eight-thirty, and then we waited together for over an hour to pick up my luggage."

"I'll believe him as much as I believe you," Bausch grunted. "Try again, Eppes."

"It's the truth!" Charlie protested.

It struck a chord for Don. There was something there, something that would end this farce. He stepped away from the one way mirror, letting Megan monitor the interrogation. He pulled out his cell phone and pushed speed dial. "Dad?"

"Don? Did you find Charlie this morning?"

"Yeah, Dad, listen; this is important. Did you pick up Charlie last night? At the airport?"

"Yes. It took forever; his luggage—"

"Yeah, Dad, I know. Did you wait at the curb for him?"

"For an hour and a half? Are you crazy? I parked the car. Lot F, I think."

Don took a deep breath. "You paid for parking. Did you get a receipt?"

"Of course. Some of those lots, they'll rob you blind and thank you for the privilege. Charlie said something about writing it off as a business expense. What's the problem, Don? The FBI going after parking attendants these days? You ought to, with those prices. Highway robbery."

"Do you still have the receipt?"

"I think so. I probably left it in the car—"

"Can you go out and check if it's there? Right now, Dad?" _Please, please let it be there_.

"All right," his father grumbled. "What's this about, Don?"

Don could hear his father's footsteps across the walk through the cell phone, heard the sound of the car door being opened, the rustle of papers. "Dad?"

"Hold on, hold on. No, that's not it—did you ever pick up that dry cleaning that I asked you about?"

"I'll get it tomorrow," Don promised him. "The receipt?"

"Nope. Nope. Yes? Nope, not it either. Wait a sec; there it is. Yes, that's it, Don. Why?"

"Are you sure that's the one? Look at the date and the time, Dad."

"Yes, I'm sure. Time out: ten twelve. You don't want to know how much they charged me," his father grouched.

"Thanks, Dad." Don could feel the sweat pouring off of himself, and he wasn't even the one being interrogated. "Hang onto that piece of paper, will you? Don't let it go. I'm going to send someone to get it from you."

"A parking receipt?" Alan Eppes' voice grew suspicious. "What's this about, Don?"

"Corroborating evidence, Dad," Don told him, "for the good guys. Don't lose it." He marched back to the interrogation chamber and walked in.

Bausch glared at him. "You're out of line, Eppes. You can't be in here."

"Questions are over, Bausch." It felt good to say that. "We've got hard evidence that Charlie was where he says he was, so back off."

"Don?" The look of relief on Charlie's face felt equally good to Don.

"Dad never threw out the receipt for the parking when he picked you up last night, buddy," Don explained. "That's independent verification that you were at LAX and not at Lavozzi Industries." That line was aimed more at Bausch than at Charlie.

"He could have—"

"Don't go there, Bausch," Don warned. "Playtime is over. Charlie's innocent. Let's get to work and nail a real suspect."

"Eppes—"

"You got something to say, Bausch?" _You still trying to keep the case?_

John Bausch flushed. He took refuge in changing the subject. "We need a lead."

"We've got a lead. We've got Charlie's business card."

"But…?"

The smile on Don's face was little short of a smirk. "We've established that Charlie's innocent. It wouldn't be hard for Magenbrot to somehow have picked up one of Charlie's cards at CalSci. You leave cards around all over the place, don't you, Charlie?"

"Not all over the place," Charlie protested faintly, still reeling from Bausch's interrogation.

"Whatever. Enough places that it would be easy for Magenbrot to get hold of one." Don brushed that detail aside. "C'mon, Charlie. Let me fill you in on the details."

"Details? You can't do that. He's involved," Bausch protested.

"No, he's not. You just established that, Agent Bausch. C'mon, Charlie," Don repeated, taking his brother by the arm and all but lifting him out of the chair in the interrogation room. "Let's go to my office. It's more comfortable."


	5. Brightest Crayon 5

Nine o'clock in the morning, and the California sun had already managed to turn the sidewalk into an outdoor convection oven. David truly regretted arriving at their next destination, because that meant that it was time to turn off the car with its air conditioning and get out in order to walk up to the house. He also regretted that his position required him to wear a suit coat in the present situation. Beside him, he could feel Colby thinking the same thoughts.

_This_ was where Magenbrot lived? David himself couldn't have afforded a place like this, a place with three stories covered in stucco, a wrought iron fence enclosing the whole shebang, and a garden beyond the gate that looked like it could keep three gardeners going for the next three years without even trying hard. The fountain in front was an ultra-clean white, demonstrating that someone had the responsibility for keeping it in pristine order by cleansing the basin on a weekly basis. Clearly the place was designed for upscale birds, pigeons need not apply.

Okay, yeah, this was it. There were a few things that gave it away: no steps into the house. Instead, there was a stucco-covered ramp which made the place wheelchair accessible. Furthermore, now that he knew to look for them, David could spot several other little giveaways that told him that the person or persons who lived here had adapted their home for their especial use. The door was a double door, wide and easy to get through with the aforementioned wheelchair or other devices used to assist ambulation. The knob on that door was low, and instead of a lock, there was a keypad for a keyless entry, something so that the inhabitants wouldn't have to bother with manipulating a key if their fingers weren't working particularly well on that day. Even the walkway leading up to the front door was wider than usual and smooth with a railing on either side to support someone with limited balance capabilities.

So how could Magenbrot afford to live here? Even if the man had a half a dozen roommates, unless one of those roommates was seriously wealthy—not to mention generous—there was no way that anyone with a job as after hours cleaning staff could manage the rent on this palace. This was L.A., for heaven's sake. Real estate prices were through the roof, and then some.

However, this was what Magenbrot's paperwork said. This is where he had lived, and this is where the uniformed LAPD cop had delivered the bad news. David led Colby up to the door and knocked.

And knocked again. It took an extra minute before someone came to the door.

David's determined words died on his tongue. The woman who answered the door was young, and a fitting companion for the man that Magenbrot had been. She was short and squat, and had the same bewildered air that had marked the photos of Magenbrot that had been taken when the man was alive. Dowdy clothing, well made but dingy in the fashion of someone who really didn't understand the concept of modern.

Her eyes were red-rimmed; obviously she had been crying. Her face was puffy and tear-streaked. This was someone who was grief-stricken.

_Immeasurable loss_. That was the phrase that came to David's mind. This young woman had obviously cared a great deal about the dead victim, and wasn't taking his loss at all well. A good friend had been stolen from her.

David changed his anticipated approach on the spot. He briefly flashed his ID in greeting. "David Sinclair, miss; FBI. I'm sorry for your loss." He nodded at Colby. "My partner, Colby Granger. May we come in?"

She nodded. Someone had asked her to do something, and it was second nature to follow instructions. She led them to a central living area to sit down.

The great room also showed too much money to fit with David's preconceived notions of Magenbrot's income, even with the income that this young friend of his would add. The sofas were new and expensive, soft brown suede and leather that invited the occupant to sit down and be comfortable. The carpets were thick pile, from wall to wall. No coffee tables, no extraneous furniture in the center of the room, and David could see why: nothing to interfere with easy travel. The art on the wall was of good quality—and also allowed for anyone with a disability to maneuver around the room without difficulty by staying decently out of the way.

All of which took money. David's curiosity was growing by leaps and bounds. This was not the typical home of anyone with a handicap such as Magenbrot.

He kept the questioning soft. "What's your name?"

"Nancy."

"What's your last name, Nancy?"

"Merrin."

"Okay, Nancy Merrin." David jotted the name down on his notepad, for effect more than because he needed the detail. "Have you lived here long?"

"Yes."

"How long?" It was like trying to separate fourteen spools of thread, all tangled up.

Nancy thought. "A long time."

"How many years?" David prodded.

More thinking. "Three. Three years."

"Did you know Reuben Magenbrot?"

Nancy nodded. "But his name's not Reuben."

"Oh?" Was this a lead? "Was what his real name?"

"Ben. His name is Ben Magenbrot."

Disappointment. David accepted the correction. "Did you know Ben very well?"

"Oh, yes. We were gonna get married," Nancy announced, pride intermingling with her grief. "We were gonna get married, and have children, and I was going to be the mother and Ben was going to be the father." Tears threatened to spill over.

"You must miss him very much," David responded.

"Yeah." Nancy went for a handkerchief, blowing her nose noisily. "Are you the policeman who is going to catch the man who hurt Ben?"

Close enough for government work. "I'm certainly going to try," David told her honestly. "I need your help. Will you help me?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice this time.

He went for the brass ring. "What makes you think that a man hurt Ben?" he asked. "Couldn't he have just tripped and fallen down the stairs?"

Nancy looked thunderous. "Ben didn't trip. He didn't!"

"Okay." David backed off quickly, not wanting to jeopardize the fragile rapport. "I believe you. But we have to convince other people. Did Ben often trip and fall?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"No! No! No, Ben never fell down! Ben never fell down!"

"Okay, okay!" End of that topic. "I believe you, Nancy. I believe you."

"He didn't fall! He didn't fall!"

"Right." Colby slithered into the conversation, took the lead in calming the girl through distraction. "It's okay, Nancy." He pushed her into another area. "You said that a man hurt Ben. Do you know who that man was?"

"No. But Ben did."

Both FBI agents stiffened. Colby eased the way forward. "Are you saying that Ben knew the person that hurt him? The person who pushed him down the stairs?"

"Yes." Nancy nodded again, tears still leaking from her eyes. She snuffled into the handkerchief.

"Did he ever tell you who the man was?"

She thought. "No."

David needed to be sure about this. "Did you ever see him? The man who hurt Ben?"

"Yes."

More excitement. "What did he look like?" _Take it slow. Take it slow_.

"He was big."

David jotted that down onto his notepad. It didn't take long. "Good. What else? What color was his hair?"

"It was blond. Like Ben's."

"Blond." David had seen the original, and it was closer to light brown than blond, but that wasn't the point. If Nancy wanted to call it blond, then David would agree with her. "He was big and blond. What else? What color were his eyes?"

"I don't know."

"Okay. How about his skin? Was it dark or light?"

"Light. He looked like Ben."

"You're doing really good, Nancy," Colby encouraged her. "You're giving us a lot of help. What else can you remember about this guy?"

Nancy scrunched up her face in thought. "He looked like Ben."

Maybe they could get additional details from her? "Did you ever hear him talk?" David asked.

"Nope."

"What was he wearing?" Which wouldn't help now, but if they could keep her talking and remembering…

"What's going on here?"

It was sharp and suspicious voice, female, and coming from the edge of the room. In fact, it was coming from an elevator. _Damn, but this place reeks of money!_ David blinked. An elevator was a really sensible thing to have in a house with three floors and people for whom stairs were an issue, but still a heck of a lot of dough to put out.

Two steps, and David could see why the elevator was in use. This woman, middle-aged and well-dressed, had a cane in her hand that she used with experience and flaming red hair that announced her presence to everyone in the room. Her gait was slow and awkward. It didn't stop her from advancing.

"What are you doing here?"

There was nothing slow about this woman's wits. She was Nancy's polar opposite. Where Nancy had physical strength but little intelligence, this woman needed help with the physical side of life but not the mental. David began to get a clue; this house contained many people, all of whom were dedicated to helping each other out, compensating for what life had done to them. This woman could make the grocery list, and Nancy could lift the items into the cupboard. Division of labor, according to the talents of each.

Once again, David flashed his badge, Colby following suit. "FBI, ma'am. Special Agent David Sinclair, Special Agent Colby Granger. We're investigating the death of Reuben Magenbrot."

"Ben," Nancy corrected in a murmur.

Everyone ignored her.

"Get out," the older woman demanded. "Haven't you people harassed us enough? You harass us at work, you harass us at home, and now you harass us in our grief. Go do something useful for a change. Go find the man who killed Ben."

"Ma'am, that's what we're trying to do." David kept his temper on a short leash. "We are not with the DEA. We're FBI, and we're investigating the death of Mr. Magenbrot. We have not harassed anyone."

"You're harassing us right now, coming into our home and interrogating Nancy. Get out." She wasn't taking no for an answer.

"If you would like us to, we can take everyone downtown for questioning." David made it formal. "We had thought, given this time of sorrow, that it might be easier for everyone if we did this here."

"What do you mean?" Her eyes narrowed.

David backed up. "Your name, ma'am?"

"Meredith Aarons. Two a's."

"You live here?" _Just to be certain_.

"Yes. Along with Nancy, and Gordon, and Phillip, and several others. And Ben. Let's not forget Ben." Meredith possessed a tongue with a healthy quantity of sarcasm.

"Thank you, ma'am." David handed it back to her. "As I said, we are investigating the untimely death of Reuben Magenbrot. The victim was found in a facility with United States military connections, and the FBI is mandated to make inquiry to ascertain whether or not a crime has been committed and, if so, to determine and apprehend the perpetrators. Would you prefer to answer questions here, or downtown?" _Just to keep it clear_.

Meredith stared at him for a long moment. "FBI? Not DEA?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You're not here to accuse us of selling drugs?"

David met her eyes. "No, ma'am. Although if we do find evidence of such, it will be our job to investigate it."

Another long minute of consideration, then Meredith's shoulders slumped. "All right. You win." She stumped over to the sofa, levering herself down onto the soft leather next to Nancy. "What do you want to know?"

David wasted no time. "Nancy told us that Mr. Magenbrot may have known his assailant, assuming that this was indeed not an accident. Is that true?"

"I don't know," Meredith admitted. She looked at Nancy, beside her, and then back to the FBI agents. "Ben and Nancy were close, and they talked about a lot of things. If you're asking me if Ben knew the man who killed him, then I have to say that I don't know. If he did, he certainly didn't tell me."

"He told me," Nancy muttered under her breath. Both agents caught it.

"I believe you, Nancy," David said, "and we'll get back to you. In fact," and David glanced at his watch, "I'd like to invite you to come downtown with me. _Invite_," he emphasized for Meredith's sake. "I'd like you to work with a sketch artist, see if we can come up with a picture of the person that Ben told you he was worried about."

Nancy looked at Meredith, all but asking for permission. Certainly the girl was seeking guidance, and David chose to put it that way. It made sense; the FBI and other government agencies were not particularly well-respected by the occupants of this domicile, and those with mental deficiencies relied on trusted household members to supply that lack. Division of labor.

Meredith slowly nodded. "I'll get my things," she said.

"We only need Nan—" Colby started.

David kicked him. "That will be fine," he told the pair.

* * *

"Okay, let's run down what we've got." Don settled everyone around the large table in the conference room. His cubicle wasn't big enough for the group, and it especially wasn't big enough if anyone needed to be kept away from someone's swinging fists. Don himself felt a great deal more under control now that he could justifiably squash Bausch if he tried to harass the FBI consultant, but Don wasn't certain that any of the DEA people could make the same claim for self-control.

"We don't have time for that," Bausch snarled. "We've got to get moving."

Don squelched the smirk that wanted to crawl onto his face. "Fine. I'm open to ideas. Yours, mine, anybody's—so long as they're legal. What's your idea?"

"What?" Bausch stared at Don as though the FBI team leader was crazy.

"What's your idea?" Don repeated. "You want to get moving on things, and I'm all for it. You've had two months to investigate this case. What direction do you want to go?" _And, by extension, why haven't you gone that route before?_

Bausch worked his jaw up and down. Nothing came out.

"Right." Don didn't rub it in. He didn't have to. Bausch, he decided, needed no one's help to make an ass of himself. Instead, Don punched up the topics. "I called the coroner's office," he started, "and the M.E. was a little more forthcoming now that some of the analyses are back. Verdict: either homicide, or death by misadventure. Our victim was running just before taking a header down the stairs. While there is always the possibility that he was getting his exercise on company time, it's more likely that he was fleeing from someone. Let's plan to take that as our assumption until proven otherwise. David?"

David took on the next piece. "We have Magenbrot's girlfriend with the sketch artist right now. There was someone that Magenbrot was afraid of, but kept the relationship secret. His girlfriend, Nancy, got some of the details but not a lot of them. Magenbrot had told her that there was something bad going on at Lavozzi, but wouldn't tell her what it was. He told Nancy that he wanted to 'protect' her from what was happening. It scared her; she didn't ask any questions."

Bausch spoke up. "Can she take the witness stand?"

"Probably not," David admitted.

"Then—"

"Doesn't make any difference," Don interrupted. "Right now, we're not collecting evidence. We're looking for a killer. This is all circumstantial, and circumstantial evidence can go bust as soon as you get the hard evidence." _Hard evidence like the parking receipt that absolves a certain math professor sitting in this room, Bausch. Not that I'm rubbing it in your face_. He smiled benignly. "Did she give you a description?"

David shrugged. "Not much of one. My height, she thought, blond with a medium build."

"That could fit half the men in L.A.," Gratofsky groused.

"Not me," David observed blandly. "Not blond."

"Lets out Charlie, too. Not blond, either." Megan couldn't resist her own jab.

"Gee, thanks, Megan," Charlie replied under his breath. Gratofsky tossed both of them a glare.

"Could be Magenbrot himself," Bausch said sourly, "except he's dead." He eyed Charlie thoughtfully. "Or someone with a blond wig."

_Give it a rest_. Don made the painful decision to rise above it all. After all, he was the team leader, and supposed to be putting the brakes on everyone else's bad behavior. He coughed deliberately, seeking everyone's attention. "So we have Magenbrot at work, cleaning offices. He meets someone there, someone that he knows well enough to be afraid of. He runs. Why?"

"He could have been afraid that the other guy was going to kill him," Colby suggested, "which the other guy did."

"Or maybe the other man said or did something that Magenbrot didn't like," Megan offered. "They knew each other, according to Magenbrot's girlfriend. Maybe it just fell apart right then and there. I mean, look at it: it's not the smartest thing to kill someone in the middle of a government research facility. It tends to raise a few eyebrows."

"Good point," Don acknowledged. He turned to Bausch and his people. "You already have established drugs running through there. Give us the scenario. How does it work? You said that the Make A Better Day cleaning company is involved."

Bausch was still glowering. "Yeah, we know that they're involved—they make it pretty obvious—but we can't figure out how. We can't get a ringer in; you can't be a cripple and be a field agent. We tried setting up cameras, and every single one of them blew a gasket. We lost everything."

Don perked up his head. "What do you mean, 'blew a gasket'? Are you saying that every video camera you hung up malfunctioned? That doesn't seem possible."

"Something happened to them," Bausch said bitterly. "The tapes all came out white, as though they'd been wiped clean."

"So you really mean that there was some tampering," Colby clarified. "The cameras didn't really malfunction. Someone did something to them."

"Yeah, and it had to be at night when those cleaning people were there," Bausch added, "which brings us back to them. One or more of 'em is guilty as sin. The problem is: which one? They all stick up for each other. We'll get at least one of 'em for dealing, and the rest for aiding and abetting a criminal."

This was getting them nowhere. The DEA men had been working on this case for so long that they couldn't see past their collective nose. Don again took control. "This means that we have several avenues to explore, people. I'm going to need a full dossier on the Better Day people, the ones who actually clean the place and I want a dossier on that head guy, what was his name?"

"Bartholomew Gideon," David murmured.

"Thank you. Megan, I want you to take that angle; give me profiles in addition to hard facts."

"On it." The profiler unfolded her long frame from the chair and slipped out of the room.

"I'm going to take it as a given that drugs are flowing through there," Don said, ignoring the sub-vocal and sour "thanks" that emanated from Bausch's direction. "What I want to know is: where are those drugs coming from? Are they a pipeline that we already know about? Is this a new player in town? Bausch, do you have any details on that?"

Bausch looked startled. "Uh—no." He coughed, clearing his throat. Obviously neither he nor his team members had thought about that angle. "No, we don't. I can check."

"Do that." Don nodded. "Let's keep up the communication. Colby, you're on this angle, with whoever Agent Bausch wants to assign."

"Steve." Bausch indicated Agent Lomb, who accepted with a nod.

"Sounds good here." Colby leaned over, having listened hard when his Quantico instructors discussed the concept of 'teamwork', and offered his hand to Agent Lomb. "Let me show you what our computers have got, and you can point me in the right direction. Sounds good?"

"Sounds good." Lomb was almost startled at this evidence of camaraderie, and recovered nicely in time to shake Colby's hand. The DEA agent followed Colby meekly out of the room, lost once he'd set one foot beyond the doorframe.

Don tried not to beam too hard. Two team members were playing nicely; could he go for the next pair? Nothing ventured, nothing gained… "David, this thing with the cameras puzzles me. One camera going down, I can buy, but all of them? That's stretching coincidence a little too far. See what you can find out about them: who would have access, how it was done, that sort of thing."

"I'd be interested in that myself," Bausch admitted, getting into the spirit of cooperation. "Gratofsky, go with him."

"You got it." Another pair vanished.

Bausch turned to Don. "That leaves you and me, Eppes." Ignoring Charlie, sitting on the other side of the conference table.

Don ignored Bausch's gesture. The man wasn't beating on Charlie; making nice could come later. "Oh, I've got plans, guy," he assured. "You and me, we get to figure out why Lavozzi Industries is the center of all this attention."

That threw Bausch. "We know why, Eppes. Drugs. We've got some drug dealers looking to make some sales and a few quick bucks. This is the drug trade."

"Maybe, but I'm not convinced that drugs are the whole story," Don said. "I mean, look at it. You can sell drugs on practically every corner of L.A. Why are you going to set up this elaborate scheme with the Make A Better Day folks? What advantage does it give you?"

"Because they're stupid—" Bausch trailed off. "You're right. There is something more. Why didn't we see it?"

"Because that wasn't your job." Don graciously allowed the deceit. "Your job was to go after the drug dealers, and that was what you were doing. Figuring out other pieces of the puzzle is what we at the FBI do. It was sheer luck that this murder happened, so that we got involved this early. Now we've got two agencies working on this, and we should have it cleared up in no time." _Don't lay it on too thick, Eppes. This is not a stupid man, despite his lack of PC._

Bausch arrowed in on the subject matter. "All right, so if the focus of this investigation isn't drugs, then what is it?"

"That," and Don rocked back in his chair, dangling a pencil between his fingers, "is what we need to find out, and we'll start right here. Charlie?"

"Huh?"

Well, Don had heard more erudite utterings from his brother's mouth. Too bad this wasn't one of them. He sighed. "Charlie, didn't you tell me that you consulted for Lavozzi Industries? What are they working on?"

Charlie now cringed. He offered up a hesitant and completely unhappy grin. "Uh, Don? I consulted for them, but my work is covered under a whole bunch of privacy clauses with national security priority. I'm not sure I'm allowed to tell you without either Lavozzi's permission or a court order."

If there was ever a time that a little brother deserved noogies, this was it. Hadn't Don just pulled Charlie's tail out of the fire on this mess? Don carefully put the pencil down, knowing that if the wooden stick remained in his fingers it would snap within moments. "I can get behind that," he lied. "What can you tell us? Without giving away national security to two security-cleared agents?"

_Want me to make it a little thicker, Chuck?_ Charlie flushed. "I…" He tried again. "I consulted for them approximately six months ago. I'm not certain of the date—I can look it up, if you want, Don—"

"We can have you do that later, Charlie." Don doubted that it would be relevant. He had gotten Charlie talking, and that was the point. "What kind of stuff did they need you for?"

"Logistics," Charlie answered promptly. "Their contract is with the US military, and they needed to ramp up production so that they could fulfill the military's needs. It was a multi-legged project, dependent on variables including off-site supply, shelf-life of certain materials, the ability of the equipment to withstand the demands—in fact, some of the equipment was redesigned to handle the stress, and I had a hand in that."

"What kind of stuff were they making?" Bausch wanted to know. "That's probably where the answer lies, Eppes," he said to Don.

Don had to agree. "Charlie?"

Charlie was still uneasy. "Don—"

"Get a court order, Eppes." Bausch had had enough. "Make him talk. I realize he's your brother, but this is way out of line."

Charlie had another idea. "Don, if you'll let me call Tony LaVozzi—"

"Hah! Like he's gonna let you talk? We needed a search warrant just to talk to his secretary."

Charlie had already grabbed the phone and dialed. "Yes, that's right, this is Dr. Eppes. Can you put me through to Dr. LaVozzi? Excellent." A pause. Then: "hey, Tony, Charlie Eppes here. Fine, fine, how are you? Margie and the kids okay? Yeah, I know, I still haven't gotten my father's lasagna recipe from him, and I'm not certain I'll be able to. I'm not sure all the security that you've got over there could squeeze it out of him." Pause. "Listen, I'm at FBI headquarters. Yes, that's right; they've called me in on that accident that happened last night. Tony, it may not have been an accident." A longer pause this time. Don watched the interplay of emotions on Bausch's face: the agent showed a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment at how quickly Don's brother had been able to get through to the CEO. _That's not going to go over well_, he thought. Charlie continued on the call. "Thanks, Tony. Listen, if they have any questions, I can bring Don over, right?" A very long pause this time, with Charlie's eyes lighting first onto his brother and then, more reluctantly, onto Senior DEA Agent Bausch. "Okay, I got it. Thanks, Tony. Later this afternoon? Thanks." He set the phone down. "It's okay, Don. Tony LaVozzi is on our side. He wants this thing cleared up as fast as we do. Maybe faster—he's worried that someone in Congress might get cranky enough to rethink security clearances. There's a lot of politics involved, and Tony can't afford to let the wrong people get annoyed. He gave me the green light to tell you everything that I know. He even invited me to bring you down to the facility sometime." His eyes strayed over to Bausch one more time and then headed guiltily back toward his brother.

There was a subtext here that Don didn't like. He wouldn't be able to discuss it with Charlie yet; if Charlie had been willing to do that then the words would already be flowing. Okay, move onto the present topic. "So talk, Chuck. What's Lavozzi Industries into? What's the big secret?"

Still Charlie hesitated, but only for a moment. "I do have to remind you both that this is national security. What we are talking about here doesn't go beyond the confines of this room, as per Pentagon protocols."

"Yeah, yeah, we know all that." Bausch waved it away. "What are they into?"

"Cleaning solvents," Charlie told them.

Bausch snorted. "Doc, that is no secret to anyone, Pentagon protocols or no. The local papers know that Lavozzi Industries makes cleaners. Hell, those kids from Better Day use them to clean the place with."

Charlie had heard that before. "We're not talking a simple ammonia-based window washing fluid here, Don," he said, aiming his discussion at a more sympathetic audience. "One of the biggest problems facing both the military and industry is how to maintain machinery in less than hospitable climates. Particulate matter—dust, sand, even organic detritus—gets into finely engineered moving parts and either cause them to stop immediately or—at best—degrade over time. It can cut years off of working life for the average electronic device.

"Lavozzi Industries has developed a cleaning solution that will substantially resolve this issue. Nothing will prevent permanent degradation, but this formulation will retard it significantly better than anything currently available," Charlie told them. "There's talk of a contract with NASA and some of our allies in addition to the Army and the Air Force."

"It's that good? A cleaner? Like something in a spray bottle?" Don was having a hard time wrapping his head around the concept that industrial grade bleach could engender so much interest. "I know people like to keep things clean, but come on! I mean, a cleaner?"

Charlie warmed to his topic. "Think of your Suburban, Don. You get the oil changed every few thousand miles. That keeps the engine relatively clean, and keeps the whole thing functioning. If you didn't change the oil, if you didn't keep it clean—"

"The engine would seize, and the whole thing would be ready for the junk yard." Don was figuring it out. "So you're saying this stuff is like military grade oil for tanks."

"Not really, and that's the beauty of the whole thing." Charlie grinned, taking off on the topic. "It's not an oil at all. It's not a lubricant. It's a metallo-phobic acid that will chew through silicon—sand, to the ordinary person—and other non-metallic particulate matter. Isn't that amazing?" he finished.

Don blinked. "Right. Amazing." Had his brother actually spoken English during that last paragraph?

Bausch put it more succinctly. "Sounds like a load of crap to me."

Charlie's grin dimmed. "It has enough crap in it to warrant a multi-billion dollar contract," he told the DEA agent, the sarcasm flowing heavily.

"Doesn't impress me," Bausch started to say.

Don interrupted. Restoring the teamwork attitude would be a good thing. "What did they need you for, Charlie?" Which Don didn't really need to hear since Charlie had already been exonerated, but it would get this session back on track.

There wasn't quite a disdainful sniff from his consultant, but it was a close thing. Charlie focused on Don. "As I said, I was consulted during the ramping up phase. Tony LaVozzi and his people had won the contract, they had the formula, now they needed to develop production facilities that could turn out enough of the formula to meet goals. They're a relatively small operation, or they were until six months ago, and they needed someone already security-cleared for the consultation. The Pentagon handed them my name. Since I was local," he added.

"Local," Bausch echoed. Everyone in that room knew that when it came to this sort of money, 'local' referred to the contiguous forty-eight states and parts of Canada.

Charlie graciously didn't rub it in and he could have, Don was well aware. Don hurried past that part. "So Lavozzi Industries is now up and running and turning out this," Don cast around for the appropriate terminology, "stuff, and sending it to the military. This stuff is of interest to foreign powers, and Lavozzi Industries is under federal restrictions not to sell it to them. That about sum it up?"

"It does," Charlie allowed. "In fact, about one month into the project I was indeed approached by someone who may have been an agent of a foreign power."

"You were?" Don perked his ears up, concerned. "Why didn't you come to me, Charlie?"

Charlie shrugged. "It was a Pentagon project, and it got handed over to them. I never saw the woman again. To be honest, I'd forgotten about it until just now."

Don turned back to Bausch. "Sounds like we have a possible answer. Drugs aren't the main point of this case, but they may be the lever that someone needs to get some of this stuff Charlie is talking about into unfriendly foreign hands. That still sound like it fits?"

Bausch nodded slowly. "It could be. It could be," he repeated, thinking. "How are we going to prove it? Those Lavozzi people are tighter than a virgin's bustle with info."

Time to prove Charlie's worth. "You heard him, on the phone," Don pointed out. "We've got an invite from the boss. We'll take him up on it."

Charlie yelped in surprise. "Don! It's almost ten! I'm going to be late for my class! I've got to get going!" He hustled to his feet.

"Hey, wait," Bausch protested. "This is national security, here! You don't walk out on national security!"

Don waved the DEA agent off. "I drove you in; I'll give you a lift back, Charlie. Only fair," he told his brother. "I'll get you there in time." He tossed a glance over his shoulder at Bausch, escorting Charlie to the door of the conference room. "I'll be back in a few, Agent Bausch. Why don't you get your notes together, and we'll go over them, figure out the best way to approach the people at Lavozzi Industries. C'mon, Charlie."

'Escape' was the best way to describe the exit of the Eppes men.


	6. Brightest Crayon 6

Colby escorted DEA Agent Steve Lomb into Colby's own cubicle, firing up the computer. "Coffee?" he offered, grabbing two cups from the dispenser as they passed. "Not Starbucks, but it'll do in a pinch. I've been up most of the night," he apologized, covering over a yawn.

The yawn was infectious, and Lomb caught it. "Thanks," he replied, accepting the cup. He inhaled a long draught himself. "Thanks," he said again. "I needed that." He looked around, eying the login screen on the computer. He raked his fingers through dark blond hair, pushing the strands away from his face. "Let's get to work. I'm eager to get these mothers put away."

Colby chuckled. "You got that right." He finished the preliminaries on the computer, instructing it to access the databases that he needed. "Most of these guys will deal anything that comes their way—coke, meth, the Big H—but they're strictly retailers and end-users, some of 'em. There's always a chance that they'll start dealing on a bigger scale, but I can't see any of 'em lucking into anything this sweet. You?"

Lomb peered at the screen. "Nope. Looks like you've got most of the kids on our own radar," he acknowledged. "Hey, Two-Timer Foster is back out on the streets? I didn't know that."

Colby looked. "Neither did I. I'm looking forward to rattling his cage, next time I see him."

"Not if I get to him first, Granger."

Colby grinned. "We can always do it tag-team."

"Good thought. Can we tie him into this mess?"

"We can tie him into any mess that we want. Unfortunately, that's not the point," Colby sighed. "Have you guys fingered any trails through Lavozzi? Any particular dealer?"

Lomb frowned. "Nothing. We're thinking that it might be a new player altogether, but we haven't heard a whisper from the streets. No new names, no new faces. After two months, it's discouraging."

"I can bet." Colby turned his attention back to the screen, searching for something to jump out and say, 'here I am!'. "Have you tried doing a chem. analysis, see if you can figure out where the stuff is coming from? What's the drug of choice at Lavozzi? Meth?"

"Nope. We've got a bunch of traditionalists, all into coke. There's one guy who's hooked on prescription Darvocet, but we think that he's not part of this. He's always whining about a back injury. He gets half of his drugs from his pharmacist and the other half, we think, from a street source."

"He really injured?"

"Not according to his medical records."

"You were able to look at them? He let you?"

"He doesn't know that we saw 'em," Lomb snickered.

To his credit, the smile on Colby's face didn't flicker. Not one iota of _this is one hell of a rogue DEA team here_ was allowed to peep forth. There wasn't a hint of _how does your boss think you're gonna get away with looking at confidential medical records without a warrant?_

"Guess he's not involved," Colby only said, making a mental note to talk to Don later, in private. Maybe teamwork with this crew wasn't such a hot idea after all. Colby would hate to see all the hard work he and his fellow FBI teammates had done go up in flames once the judge heard about how this trio treated the law. "So we're looking at the coke industry. That says we've got the stuff coming in from Central America, right? Which dealers have been the most active?" Colby asked, steering the discussion onto safer ground.

"Huh. They're _all_ active." Lomb snorted in disgust. "They think they own the streets."

_Maybe they do, dude. You doing anything about it? You're only the Drug Enforcement Agency. _"Any larger than usual activity lately?" Colby refined his query. "Any particular groups you can think of that are flashing more than the usual wads of cash around?"

Lomb frowned. "Now that you mention it, yes. The Thirteenth Street gang has been a little more lippy than they usually are, and so are the Zoo-Bangers. You want to go talk to them?"

Colby joined the frown. Both gangs that Lomb had mentioned were big and tough and noted for their less than welcoming behavior toward members of the enforcement arm of government. "Unless you know of a better way to get information?"

"I'll get my crowbar," Lomb advised him glumly. "It may _be_ the better way."

* * *

"Where are we going?" Agent Gratofsky asked, following David out to his car and carrying an open box. Inside was one of the cameras that the DEA had used to try to catch the perpetrators in the act of planting drugs in desks at Lavozzi Industries. "You said we weren't going to go back to FBI Headquarters? Where do you expect to take this thing, Agent Sinclair?"

"Call me David," David invited for the third time. "I'm taking it to an expert consultant."

"Not your guys?"

David grinned, popping the trunk for Gratofsky to put the box into. "Man, I have a very healthy respect for both my Forensics guys as well as yours. If yours couldn't figure it out, it's a good chance that mine can't either."

"So that leaves—"

"I happen to be on good terms with some of the professors at CalSci," David explained, "professors who love a good challenge." He jerked his thumb at the box, now hidden under the hood of the trunk. "There's our challenge. Hop in; let's see who we can find."

* * *

Don escorted Charlie along the fourth floor toward the elevator and toward the exit, blessing the circumstances that had left Charlie here without transportation back to CalSci. There had been a whole lot of little sub-plots going on in that conversation with DEA Agent Bausch and Don really wanted to find out a little bit more about everything from the FBI consultant without the DEA agent present. He had a feeling that Charlie had just received a lot of information from his former employer that would give the FBI a boost forward in this case. Giving Charlie a lift back to his office would give Don a chance for something more than a little brotherly bonding.

This floor of the FBI building was built along the lines of the 'open' architecture, meaning that someone clever had decided that cubicles that didn't reach to the ceiling would open up the air flow and give the prisoners—er, _employees_—a sense of greater space, enhanced by the large windows in each cubicle that were the bane of existence for the evening cleaning staff. Those windows meant that people could see and be seen, could see all the way through to the large windows that peered off toward the mountains east of L.A., and could monitor the flow of personnel through the superimposed corridors where Don was leading his brother.

Don could see Da Vinci in the cubicle up ahead, with that girlfriend of Magenbrot's that David and Colby had brought in. Da Vinci—Don couldn't remember the guy's real name and he wouldn't swear that Da Vinci could either unless he was looking at his pay stub—was a real genius when it came to pulling out the details from flustered witnesses. Don watched the scene through the cubicle window as their steps brought the two Eppes brothers closer. The girlfriend—Nancy was her name, Nancy something-or-other—was short and squat, with mousy brown hair cut short in an easy to care for style that looked like it belonged to someone in their fifties. Her clothes were right along with the same older style, comfortable and doing nothing to enhance the overall picture. The girl's hands would flutter up to illustrate some point to Da Vinci, then settle back down into her lap and cling to each other. The kid was clearly scared stiff at being here. Not that Don could blame her; this place could be overwhelming to anyone, let alone someone who had just lost a loved one. Points to the girlfriend, that she had come along as meekly as she'd done.

Out of the corner of his eye Don saw another figure, this one more put together, watching the action intently from the other side of the table. Ah, that must be the chaperone that Colby had mentioned sourly, the one that the girlfriend trusted to look out for her. That one looked a lot more like she knew which end was up: good clothes that suited her flaming red hair—didn't have that out-of-the-bottle look, so Don surmised that it was her natural color, along with the ultra pale skin that usually came with—and a cane leaning casually against the chair she was sitting in. Give the chaperone points: she wasn't trying to interfere. Da Vinci was treating Nancy right, so the chaperone was just there for moral support. Don caught sight of the portrait over Da Vinci's shoulder. It was almost completed, with Da Vinci putting on the finishing touches. Good; one more clue to work with.

The girlfriend looked up, and spotted the Eppes brothers heading toward the elevator. Recognition shot across her face.

"It's Mr. Math Professor!" she screeched. "It's Mr. Math Professor! Mr. Math Professor!"

Both Eppes halted on a dime and turned around to look at her, one because it was his profession to turn when people yelled and the other because there was no one else in the vicinity who could come close to the description of 'Mr. Math Professor'.

Stopping didn't matter. Nancy had seen Professor Eppes, and was on her feet and running out to confront him. "Mr. Math Professor!" she squealed, just in case not every one on the floor had heard her. "Mr. Math Professor!"

Don turned to Charlie. "You know this one, too?"

Charlie wore a look of complete bewilderment over a heavy underlay of embarrassed red. "Don, I swear I've never seen her before in my life! Who is she?"

"That's Magenbrot's girlfriend," Don inserted just before Nancy dashed up to the two men.

She planted her feet in front of Charlie. Charlie wasn't tall, but Nancy barely arrived at five feet in height. He towered over her like a basketball player. She looked up at him, tears welling into her eyes. "Mr. Math Professor, why didn't you help Ben?"

"Uh…" Charlie looked around helplessly, looked at Don, even looked to the heads popping out of their cubicles to watch. _What do I tell this girl?_

"Why didn't you help Ben, Mr. Math Professor?" she asked again, her voice cracking. "Why didn't you help Ben?"

"Nancy—" the chaperone with the red hair came up behind them, leaning heavily on her cane.

"Meredith, why didn't Mr. Math Professor help Ben?" Nancy sobbed, turning to the chaperone. "Ben said that he would! Ben said he promised!"

Charlie gulped. "Don…" _Help!_

CalSci was going to have to wait for the return of its professor, Don decided on the spot. Don took Nancy's arm, gently steering her back along the corridor. "I think we need to sit down and figure this out," he said. "Let's go back into the conference room."

"But Mr. Math Professor—!"

"'Mr. Math Professor' is coming with us," Don assured her. "Aren't you, Charlie?"

"Uh…sure." _Like I have a choice?_ Don could read that on his brother's face as plainly as the anguish on the girl he was escorting.

"Meredith—"

"I'm right here, Nancy," the chaperone said. "I'm coming, too. We're going to get this straightened out." She fixed Don with a commanding eye. "Aren't we, Special Agent Eppes?"

"Yes, ma'am." Don said obediently. "Right this way, ladies."


	7. Brightest Crayon 7

The most pleasant thing about this whole excursion, Colby had long ago decided, was the pungent odor of elephant manure that wafted over the twelve foot high cinderblock wall that separated the Ginsberg Zoo from the rest of L.A. Colby wrinkled up his nose at the stench.

It certainly wasn't the gang of toughs that he and Lomb were facing down. Not one of the gang members was over thirty—one used to be, Colby remembered, but he was killed in a drive-by shooting more than a year ago—and they were all mouthing off.

Lomb pinned Big Snake against the wall, dragging his arm up into a classic half-Nelson.

Big Snake yelped. "Hey, watch out, man! That's my arm! You gonna break it!"

Colby's job was to watch the other ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, and he did it with his hand on his gun. "Nobody get excited," he warned them. "All we want is a little chat with Snake here."

One of the Zoo Bangers gang members stuck out his chin. "Maybe Snake don't wanna have a little chat with you, man."

As long as it was only his chin that the kid stuck out, Colby could live with that. If the kid went for the illegal knife that he had stuck into his back pocket…

He didn't. None of them did; they were all sticking to the script, and Colby obliged them by keeping up his end of it. "Now that would really be a bummer, man," he said, "'cause then we'd have to run him downtown, and run all kinds of warrants to see what was outstanding. Maybe a parking ticket or two, you know what I mean?"

"Snake ain't got no car."

Colby doubted that. Now, if they'd said that Snake didn't have his name on a pretty white piece of paper that held title to a car, that he'd believe. "I'm sure we could find something," he said. "Maybe it wouldn't be anything as harmless as a parking ticket. Maybe it would be something a little nastier. What do you think, Lomb?"

"Oh, I definitely think it would be something nastier, Granger. I think it would be a whole lot nastier." Lomb was known to this gang. He'd been working this territory for a number of years, had known exactly where to go in order to grab the lowlife that he now held flat against the cement wall. It was why he'd been selected to play bad cop to Colby's good. "In fact, I think it could be so nasty that the judge would forget about time off for good behavior, and send you where you can play with the boys who like to hear you squeal like a little girl. You want that, Snake? You wanna play girlfriend to some of those big boys?" He leaned in close to Snake's ear. "I can make that happen. Watch me." He yanked up on Snake's arm, forcing out a yelp. "Hear that, Snake? That's just the way they like it. They like their meat nice and fresh. They like to hear you crying in your sleep. Them old ones, the ones that got all used up, they just lay there and take it. You they're gonna take their time with, all ten to fifteen years of it."

"But that isn't going to happen." Colby still kept his attention on the other gang members. "We don't really want you," he said, hoping that Lomb wasn't getting so carried away with himself that he forgot to agree. "We don't even want your source."

"For now," Lomb hissed, half an inch away. "For now."

"What we want," Colby said, ignoring Lomb's eagerness, "is the bad ass that you're dealing to, the one with the big bucks. Give him up, and you can go on your way."

"Not a chance—oww! Let go of me, you—"

"Now, now," Colby chided, trying to hold Lomb back. "I mean, come on, man; it's not like you aren't gonna find more dudes who want your stuff."

"I don't know what you're talking about, man."

This was getting old. Colby sighed. "Have it your way, guy. How many deals you think are going to go away because you got a couple of G-men on your tail, watching your every move? That can be arranged real easy, man."

That hit Snake where he lived, and they all knew it. He couldn't give up his source—that would be a slow and painful death, worse than the fate Lomb had promised him, but people to sell to were a dimebag a dozen. The Zoo-Bangers could always find more in a heartbeat.

Colby looked for support among the rest of the gang. "How 'bout it, guys?" he invited. "You can lose one deal, or you can lose 'em all. You can all take the hit in the wallet."

"Give it to 'em, Snake." One of the gang members lost his nerve, or simply had a better head for business than the rest. "Cut our losses."

"Not a chance, man." Snake's heart wasn't in it; he was just looking good for the rest of his 'buds. "Okay, okay!" he howled as Lomb helped with the rest of the scene by shoving Snake's arm up past his shoulder blades. "Dude's yours!"

* * *

Don returned with glasses of water for everyone, two for Charlie and for Nancy who really looked as they could use something mundane, and the others for himself and Meredith, the chaperone, and for DEA Agent John Bausch who, upon hearing the commotion, took it upon himself to join the party despite the dirty looks that Meredith threw in his direction. Don carefully seated Meredith at the other end of the table where she couldn't reach Bausch even with her cane; it appeared that an arrest for assault on a Federal DEA agent was not out of the realm of possibility.

He took control of the interview, not letting anyone else have the opportunity. "So, Nancy," he said, folding himself into the chair as a signal for everyone else to keep their tempers in check, "how do you know Professor Eppes? Mr. Math Professor?" he clarified. "You recognized him. Have you seen him before?"

"Oh, yes!" Nancy bobbed her head up and down enthusiastically. "I've seen him lots of times!"

"Don—"

Don held up his hand to halt his brother. "Where did you see him, Nancy?"

Nancy really wanted to help the nice FBI agent to find the man who had hurt Ben. "I saw him in Ben's room," she told Don.

_Crap_. Don could feel Bausch wanting to jump over the conference table, tackle Charlie, and take him to the floor. Only the fact that Charlie had an alibi for the night of the murder kept Bausch away from Don's brother's throat. _It still could happen_. "You saw this man, Mr. Math Professor, in Ben's room?" There had to be some mistake.

"Oh, yes!" More head bobbing.

"Don—"

"Eppes—"

"Hold on, Charlie." Don turned back to Nancy. "When did you see him there, Nancy?"

"He's there all the time," Nancy confided, trying hard to tell the truth. "I see him there all the time. Ben said that Mr. Math Professor is gonna teach him to be smart, like him."

Now Don knew that there had to be some mistake. There weren't enough hours in the day for Charlie to be there all the time, not with all the time that his kid brother spent hiding out in his garage/office away from the office. There was some piece missing, something that he wasn't getting.

Meredith supplied it. "Nancy," she said, leaning forward to her charge, "you went to Ben's room a lot, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did," Nancy said proudly. "Ben and I loved each other. We were gonna get married."

"That's right; we all knew it. Ben told you all about Professor Eppes, told you how he used to go the classes that Professor Eppes taught."

"Uh-huh," Nancy agreed. "Ben went to Mr. Math Professor's class. That's what he told me. He went there to get smart. He told me that if I went there, I could get smart too."

Big question time, and Meredith was holding Don back just as Don had put off both Charlie and Bausch. Meredith took Nancy's hand. "Nancy, did Mr. Math Professor ever go to Ben's room in the house?"

Nancy sat up straight. "Oh, no! Mr. Math Professor never came to the house."

"But why did she say—" Bausch started to spout.

Meredith hushed him with a non-vocalized snarl. There was no love lost between the two. She turned her attention back to Nancy. "But you recognized Mr. Math Professor, Professor Eppes. How did you recognize him if he had never come to see Ben at the house?"

"Because Ben had a bunch of pictures of him," Nancy told her, almost scornfully, as if Meredith ought to have known the answer to that. Wasn't it obvious?

Don could hear two things behind his back: a sigh of relief from Charlie, and the sound of teeth grinding from Bausch. He wrestled a grin into submission, and moved in to take over from Meredith. "You're saying that Ben had pictures of Charlie? Mr. Math Professor?"

"Oh, yes," Nancy confirmed. "He had them in his room."

Don wanted to make this perfectly clear. "So you've never actually seen Charlie in person? You've never actually met Mr. Math Professor?"

Nancy favored Charlie with a long and thoughtful stare. "No."

Charlie couldn't kept quiet. "You've never met me before, right?"

"Nope."

They could all see Charlie visibly relax at this further evidence of his unwitting participation in this case. Don took over the interrogation side; the heavy duty part was through, and Meredith was satisfied to let him.

"Nancy," he said, "you're saying that Ben has pictures of Charlie, of Mr. Math Professor, in his room, right?"

"Yup."

"How did he get them?" Don asked. "What kind of pictures? Why did he want them?"

Too many questions, all at once. He could see the tears well up in her eyes. "Ben wanted to be smart, like everyone else," Nancy said, her voice thick with emotion. "Ben wanted Mr. Math Professor to teach him, like he was teaching the other kids. Ben wanted to go to school, too."

"This is a waste of time," Bausch growled under his breath. "Eppes, we need to search that kid's room, find out how he was involved."

"You'll need a warrant," Meredith hissed back at him. "You won't set one foot inside my door without it!"

"This is a murder investigation—"

"Which the DEA isn't investigating," Don interrupted. This was getting out of hand, and the fragile rapport was deteriorating rapidly. "Agent Bausch, I think you have something to do elsewhere."

"Eppes—"

"Somewhere else, Bausch." Don was firm. The FBI was in charge of this case, and this wasn't helping.

Bausch, with a snarl, jumped to his feet and stormed out of the conference room, taking half of the thunder with him. If the hinges hadn't been muffled and the floor carpeted, the slam would have echoed throughout the floor.

Don turned back to Meredith. "He's a pain in the—backside," he substituted the term quickly, "but he's right. Legally, we don't need a warrant to investigate Mr. Magenbrot's room, not for a murder and certainly not for one involving national security." He paused to let that sink in. "I'd rather do it with your approval. Or don't you want to bring Ben's killer to justice?" he added, keeping the majority of the sarcasm out of his voice. "The FBI hasn't been harassing you; we just came in on this case once the murder was committed. We're here now, and we'd like to solve this as quickly as possible so that everyone can move on. We can use your help, you and Nancy. The two of you may be able to spot something out of the ordinary, something that Ben may have hidden away just in case an accident happened." One more pause. "Will you help us?"

Meredith was thoroughly undecided. After years of fighting battles with government agencies, the trust was completely gone.

"Please." Charlie stepped in. "Please help us. This is my name getting dragged into this, too, as well as Ben's. I never knew him; I only saw him sitting in the back of my classroom, and I regret that I never had the opportunity to speak with him. I would have, if he hadn't left so quickly." He took another breath. "Please help my brother Don to find out who killed him. I think we all need this."

Nancy too was moved. She tugged at Meredith's sleeve. "Please, Meredith. I want to help them. I want to help them find out who hurt Ben."

Meredith sighed, already regretting what she was about to say. "Let's go. You'll have our help—but only to find Ben's killer. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly." Don kept the exultation inside. It would have ruined the moment.


	8. Brightest Crayon 8

Jerry Gratofsky leaned over to whisper into David's ear. "I thought you said he was an astrophysicist."

"I did."

"Then how come he knows about digital photography? What does that have to do with stars and stuff?"

"One does not merely 'hook up a camera' to the Hubble Telescope and expect to observe the heavens, Agent Gratofsky," Dr. Laurence Fleinhardt inserted serenely into the discussion that he was overhearing despite his preoccupation with the equipment that he had been presented with. "You are perhaps unaware of the budgetary setbacks suffered by NASA during the last several adminstrations, resulting in many of us needing to acquire additional skill sets in order to advance our respective agendas. When one needs to make a fiduciary choice between acquiring a piece of hardware and hiring the necessary personnel to install said hardware, one learns very quickly the value of education learned, so to speak, 'on the fly'." He twirled a small screwdriver onto the plate on the back of the digital recorder that David and Agent Gratofsky had brought to him. "You will note the lack of miniscule scrapings around the entry points for the screws, suggesting that either the cameras were not accessed in this fashion or that the perpetrator or perpetrators were exceeding careful in their efforts. Ah, there it comes," he said, lifting the plate off of the metallic box-like affair. "Let us look inside. Clean; delightful. As someone who suffers from various forms of reactions to a multitude of allergens, I most appreciate the absence of dust. It also suggests that this camera was cleaned in the not distant past. Agent Gratofsky, when was the last time this piece of equipment was touched? I am referring to the mechanics of this device, rather than the outer case."

"Uh…" Gratofsky let that sound do double duty, giving him time to both decipher what Professor Fleinhardt had said and then to remember the answer. "We used it three weeks ago, and it came up blank. At first we thought we'd set it up wrong."

"Ah. Your own agency also suffers from lack of adequate financing, and was unable to obtain the necessary expertise to ensure appropriate functioning."

"Uh, right. Steve Lomb had used this stuff on our last case, and he thought he could get it to work. When nothing came out on film, we just thought he was blowing steam, that he didn't really know what he was doing. We thought that we were going to have to wait for our tech guys to get around to us so that we could try again."

"Always a possibility," Larry murmured, inserting a cable onto a willing receptacle. "Hah. The lack of dust in the interior suggests that someone with a modicum of education did indeed investigate the mechanics of this toy, possibly for nefarious purposes. Let's see if his expertise exceeds my own. There," he finished, turning on his own laptop. "Let's see what we can decipher from the results."

"I don't see anything," Gratofsky complained after a minute of watching the blue screen of death on Larry's computer.

"Not accurate," Larry demurred. "You are observing the antics of a computer faced with a presently incompatible signal. However, if I acquire the signal and transmute it into something with a modicum of compatibility, and then I…" His words diminished in volume to barely over a mutter as he peered into the workings of the camera that he'd been presented with and then tapped several commands onto his keyboard.

The screen morphed into a blank screen of white.

"Is that an improvement?" David wondered.

"Indubitably," Larry murmured. "Compare the blue giant star to the super nova of whiteness that the blue giant aspires to, and you will see what I mean."

"Huh?"

"Just accept it," David advised Gratofsky. "You are in the presence of genius. If you understood what he meant, you be in line for a professorship."

"Or at least to write a short article for Wikipedia," Larry said. "Aha! It's coming through. Not clearly, and further work in a forensics lab is needed, but you can see that there is movement on the image."

The sheer white on the laptop took on a dingy gray color, and vague shapes could be seen moving through the almost cloud-like background. There was very little that could be deciphered from the images, but there obviously had been something on the digitalized film, something that had been covered over by tampering.

"Okay, this is good." David maneuvered himself around to take a better look at the screen. "Larry, this is excellent! How did you do this?"

Larry preened. "If I told you, I would only be diminishing the sense of awe and wonder that you are currently feeling."

"Not a chance, man." David looked up. "Can you clean it up any? Any chance of getting a clear picture of who is starring in this film?"

"Alas, I cannot," Larry told him. "At this point, I must insist that you turn it over to someone with access to the appropriate technology. The images are there, but my simple equipment is woefully under-prepared to do as you request." He gestured at the almost white screen. "However, you can take heart that the person you seek for the perpetration of this dismal piece of film is someone with more than a modicum of knowledge of digital photography. It took training to do this; anyone else would have simply destroyed the camera and left the evidence behind as witness to his lack of education."

David agreed. "And they bought themselves several weeks of time. How long have you been sitting on this thing, Jerry?"

Gratofsky looked unhappy. "Two or three weeks. Two or three weeks where we could have been looking for the real character behind this mess."

"And an innocent man might still be alive," David added grimly.

Gratofsky shook his head. "Are we certain that he was innocent?"

* * *

Reuben Magenbrot's home was exactly as David and Colby had described it, and all of Don's instincts were aroused at the sight. Magenbrot had been in a low end job; how had he earned enough money to live in a mansion like this? Even with a dozen or more people to share expenses, there had to be some very fancy money changing hands for him and the rest of his friends to call this home in the middle of Los Angeles. It wasn't just the size of the place, although that was impressive enough. No, it was the overall look, the quality of the fixtures, the suggestion that the statuary wasn't something that someone had trash-picked from the neighborhood over. This _was_ the 'neighborhood over'. He glanced at the rest of his team: Charlie was oblivious to the disparity. Don had told Charlie to be alert for anything that meant anything to the math professor, and that was what his kid brother was doing: looking for things that might have been in Charlie's possession before Magenbrot got hold of them. Things like how this place looked were beyond his ken.

Bausch was another story. He'd been here before and more than once. The richness of the home no longer impressed him but he too found the place to be excessively fine for the average L.A. resident, let alone one at Magenbrot's pay scale. His attention wasn't on the furnishings but on the inhabitants, eyes darting here and there, taking them all in, looking for clues that would send him off on the chase once again.

Don would leave it to Bausch to fill him in on the details of Magenbrot's roommates. They seemed to fall into two categories, mental and physical disabilities, which fit with the Make A Better Day vision: coordinating to make best use of abilities and compensating for any lack. Don counted almost a dozen members of the household, all staring at the small troupe trekking in over the transom, Nancy leading the way to Magenbrot's bedroom. Two observers had canes, two were in wheelchairs that looked well-used and with shoulders that also looked buff from that use, and at least three others had facial features that suggested some sort of genetic anomaly. Don was no doctor to recognize exactly which crime of nature had occurred to each tenant, but he didn't need to be. This was a cohesive group, all committed to protecting each other from the world outside their door.

Don had been glared at before, and by experts, but this went far beyond anything he'd ever experienced. Other people glared at him because he was invading their turf, because he was looking to arrest someone that didn't want to be arrested. Sometimes it was out of anger, that he hadn't yet arrested someone who deserved it.

This was different. He was invading their turf, and they were angry, and they were hurting, and—more importantly—they were hurting again. Half of them didn't truly comprehend why he was there, only that 'the world' had taken one of them away and that it shouldn't have; Don represented that world. The other half had a more sullen anger: they knew who and what Don was, and lumped him in with Bausch and the others and everyone who thought that they could take advantage of people who couldn't fight back. This wasn't a momentary situational anger. This was a deep down fury, a lashing out at a cold and unfeeling world that had cheated them out of an entire life.

Bausch had done this, he and his team. Bausch had run ragged over these people until they no longer trusted anyone who came with the government seal of approval. Yeah, someone around here was dirty, but not the whole bunch of them. On that, Don would stake his reputation. Bashing people like this was not only not justified, it was just plain _wrong_. Don almost regretted the laws that gave him access to this home, the situation that called for the investigation of a murder on government-affiliated grounds.

On the other hand, Special Agent Don Eppes wasn't Bausch, and he couldn't help that Bausch's higher ups didn't keep the man on a closer leash. If Bausch stepped out of line here, Don could do his best to file a complaint. He'd have to be careful, though; Charlie's presence could be misconstrued, and Don's own relationship to an exonerated suspect could also be taken the wrong way…

Thank God for Nancy Merrin. She barreled in through the front door, tapping the unlock code onto the touch pad and ushered them in, Meredith stumping along behind with her cane. Nobody asked for warrants, nobody questioned Nancy's right to bring Don and the others in. They glared, but Nancy got them in without any blood being shed, either physically or verbally.

There was some under the breath murmuring when Charlie walked in. More than one person living there recognized him. Don gave them a sharp glance.

"Mr. Math Professor!" one blurted out, and then hastily removed himself to the back of the group.

The outburst allowed Don to pause. "You know him?" he asked, pulling Charlie forward for the group to get a better look.

Nobody answered.

"Tell him," Nancy demanded of the group. "Tell him. Tell Mr. Math Professor, so that Mr. Math Professor can catch the bad man that hurt Ben."

The wording might have been a little off, Don reflected, but the sentiment got through. The group divided itself into two, those with mental disabilities and those with physical. The physically disabled had been excluded from Ben's closest circle, and the mentally challenged were the ones who knew Charlie's face.

"Ben knew him," one said hesitantly, one with an old surgical scar on the side of his head that his hair didn't quite cover.

"Ben learned from him," another added.

The floodgates opened, and suddenly there were half a dozen people all talking, all trying to tell Don that the late Reuben Magenbrot had been a fan of Professor Charles Eppes.

Don chanced a look at this brother. Charlie was having a hard time with this, and his face showed it. These were people that he'd never met, yet each of them could say 'morphological algorithms' and 'Ito-Stratonovich drift integrals', and Charlie was staring at them at them as though he'd never heard the terms before. _Had_ he heard those terms before? They certainly sounded like Charlie-speak, even though Don himself wouldn't swear to them. But these kids—these adults, with their limited brainpower—were chanting the phrases like mantras, hoping that the knowledge contained within the words would somehow seep into their own gray matter by osmosis.

Not helping; at least, not helping Don's case. It confirmed what Nancy had told them, that Ben had known Charlie as the math genius, but it got them no further. Don took Charlie by the elbow. "We need to check out Mr. Magenbrot's room," he told the group gently. "Nancy, can you show us where it is?"

"I'm coming along, too," Meredith announced icily. The sub-text was clear: she didn't trust any of the government agents, no matter whether they worked for the FBI or the DEA.

Don had no problem with that. "Be my guest," he invited. "I'll just ask you to observe from the hall while we look through his things, in case we need to get Forensics in here."

They arrived at Magenbrot's room in two groups, one taking the small elevator to the second floor and the rest using the stairs. The door was half-closed, and it was easy to see inside. Nancy started to go in, and Don gently held her back. "Let me," he requested, pushing the door the rest of the way open. Don, Charlie, and Bausch peered inside, Nancy and Meredith watching the men do their work.

The room was consistent with what Don had already observed: far more money available to the victim than anyone would have expected. It was larger than Don's own bedroom by far, perhaps the size of his bedroom and living room put together. Magenbrot would have been dwarfed by the king size bed that Don saw, the sheets rumpled and tossed. Magenbrot had clearly not been a fan of neatness, and now he never would be. The windows were large to take advantage of the southern California beauty, with blinds in place for times when the sun became too obstreperous. The closet was overflowing with clothes, some garishly decorated with rhinestones in an Elvis sort of fashion but most simple workday wear that wouldn't stand out anywhere. Don recognized these as being the type that Magenbrot had been wearing on the night that he had been killed.

If there was going to be anything, it was most likely going to be on that desk in the far corner of the room that appeared to have been Magenbrot's pride and joy. Don moved in, using only his eyes to start.

The computer was there, a fairly old model that nonetheless had all the trappings that money could buy: extra drives, an external web cam perched on top, flashing lights on the housing to the computer itself. There was a joystick for playing games, not one but two screens to spread the picture across—bottom line, Magenbrot had spent a lot of money on his system. Don decided that he'd detail one of the forensic IT types to come in and go through the files, see if there was anything to advance the case, and he mentioned it aloud.

"You're sending someone _else_ here to go through Ben's things?" Meredith was not happy and had no hesitation in showing it.

Don elected for the apologetic response. "Ma'am, I could have it boxed up and taken to FBI headquarters, if you'd prefer." Actually, the choice of what to do was Don's, but it didn't seem politic to tell her that. Don would save that for when it was needed. "I'm hoping that we can finish this quickly, so that we can be out of your way."

"Hmph." It was the closest thing to 'permission' that he was going to get, and Don chose not to push.

Charlie, however, wasn't as people-savvy. "I could go through it right now," he offered. "It probably wouldn't take long."

"Let Mr. Math Professor do it." Nancy liked that idea.

Bausch didn't. "Not a chance," he growled. "You may be clear so far, Eppes, but I'm still not satisfi—"

"I have other plans for you, Charlie," Don interrupted, glaring at Bausch.

"Really? What?"

"I'll talk about it once we get back to Headquarters," Don told him, refusing to admit that he'd made up the lie on the spot. He—not quite desperately—redirected the discussion. "See anything that rings a bell? Anything to connect Magenbrot to you?"

Charlie too looked at the items on the desk, his gaze lingering longingly on the computer but obediently scanning the rest of the things. "Hey! There's the pen that I'd thought that I'd lost. Don, that's the one that Dr. Eisenstein gave me when I did that presentation at his conference last year. You remember, that's the one where I beat out Penfield for the spot as primary speaker—"

"I remember," Don, who remembered no such thing, interrupted. "Charlie, you're saying that Magenbrot took this pen from you?"

"Ben didn't steal nuthin'—"

"Not saying that he did." It was Don's day to interrupt everyone, Magenbrot's girlfriend included. "Don't touch, buddy," he warned, grabbing Charlie's hand before he could reach for the lost writing utensil. Don pulled out a spare glove, blessing his habit of always tucking one into his pocket. He used it to pick up the pen, twirling it so that they could see Charlie's name engraved on the side as a memento. "When was the last time that you saw this, Charlie?"

Charlie tried to think. "A while ago. I think it was in my laptop bag, where I dump most of my stuff. I had a data stick in there, that I had my lectures on—"

"Right." Don caught off the rest of the spiel; he'd heard it before. The only reason that the kitchen sink wasn't in Charlie's laptop bag was that it wouldn't fit. His kid brother would stick anything and everything in there and then wonder why it felt so heavy. It was a reasonable conjecture to suppose that the pen had fallen out onto the desk, and that Magenbrot had picked it up. "See anything else, buddy?"

Charlie peered. "No. No, I don't think so. No, wait!"

"Charlie?"

But Charlie wasn't looking at anything on the desk top. "Don, the pen! I didn't take it to class. The last time I remember actually seeing it—_using_ it—was when I was meeting with someone." He darted a guilty look toward Bausch.

"Who, Charlie?" Don pushed.

"I—I'm not sure."

"Who, Eppes?" Bausch had caught the deer-in-the-headlights look and knew exactly what it meant.

Charlie got that set tone to his jaw that Don recognized, the attitude that said that Charlie really didn't want to tell on someone. Don knew he could weasel it out of his brother, knew he'd been able to do it ever since Don had been ten and Charlie a meager six. It was a fact: Charlie couldn't keep a secret from Don, not if Don really wanted to know. Being an expert in investigation and crime had nothing to do with it; Don had cut his eye-teeth on Charlie and then moved onto bigger and better interrogations as an adult.

However, that little glance toward Bausch had meant something, and Don was willing to bet that he knew what it was. Helping his brother out under these circumstances seemed like the sensible thing to do. "It'll come to you," he said easily. "Charlie, you recognize anything else here?"

"You mean, besides my picture and my book?" Charlie leaped onto the distraction, even going so far as to walk over to the items that Don had mentioned. Anything to get away from that desk.

It worked. Bausch looked at the various newspaper clippings tacked to the corkboard on the wall to one side of the room and scowled. Magenbrot had removed the dust jacket from 'The Attraction Equation' and pinned it to the center in the place of honor, ringing the jacket around with sequined ribbons to make it stand out even more. "I've seen serial killers with less ornate altars," he grumbled. "Elvis would be proud of this tribute. You sure that Magenbrot isn't dirty?"

Too much for Meredith, watching from the doorway. "I'm certain that he's dead, Agent Bausch," she snapped. "If you're going to try to pin something on him, and he isn't even here to defend himself—"

"Nobody's pinning anything on anybody," Don interrupted. What was this, the fourth interruption he'd had to perform today? Who died and made Don the hall monitor, tasked with making the children play nicely? "Charlie, you see anything else?"

"No." Charlie wasn't sure what Don wanted him to say. He settled for the truth.

"Then we're out of here," Don decided. Time to bring this scene to a close. He turned back to Meredith. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to need our Forensics people to come out and take some pictures. I'm going to seal off this room—"

"You can't do that!" Meredith said icily. "This is our house—"

Don had had enough, and he had a little more sympathy for Bausch trying to cope with this never-ending litany of 'poor me'. "I can, and I am, because it is needed in order to solve this case. Or don't you want to catch Mr. Magenbrot's kill—assailant?" he asked, changing the last word in deference to the man's girlfriend hovering behind Meredith. "I'm not going to include the rest of your home," he added, letting the _but I could_ ring out to the ears that could understand the threat, "though I will need to tape this door shut. I'm putting everyone in this house on their honor not to try to get into Mr. Magenbrot's room until after the Forensics people are finished."

"Eppes—" Bausch tried to complain.

Yet another interruption, and this time Don made it physical. He pulled the keys to his Suburban out of his pocket and tossed them quickly at Bausch, making the man hustle to catch them. "Thanks for offering, Agent Bausch. The crime scene tape is in the back of my truck. I'll wait here until you bring it up."

Bausch's jaw dropped, but only for a split second. The red rush to his face died away equally as fast. "Be right back," he said. It was toss up as to whether that was a promise or a threat.

One problem dealt with. He turned to the next. "Ms. Aarons," he said to Meredith, "I'm going to ask you to make certain that everyone is aware that Mr. Magenbrot's room is off-limits until the Forensics people are finished. Can I rely on you to do that?"

"I'm not in charge in this house. We're all equals—"

"I didn't ask if you were in charge. I asked if you could make everyone aware that this room is off-limits," Don repeated patiently. "If that's not possible, I can arrange for a guard from LAPD to be here."

Meredith glared at him. "That's not necessary."

"You'll keep everyone out?" Don wasn't letting her get away with anything.

Meredith glared. "Yes."

"Thank you." Don didn't gloat. He did dismiss her by politely turning to his brother. "Last chance, Charlie. You see anything else in this room? Anything jump out at you?"

If there had been anything jumping, Charlie wouldn't have seen it with his gaze firmly fixed at his shoes. "No."

Don sighed. There were a lot of pieces to this puzzle that he'd just acquired. Now if he could only figure out how to fit them together…


	9. Brightest Crayon 9

"If you don't configure the sub-routine to the tools menu, you'll receive the same indecipherable picture that I did," Dr. Laurence Fleinhardt told the Forensics geek.

Inwardly, David cringed. There was a reason that they kept the Forensics Team in the basement, away from sane folk, and Terry Gatsbacher was a large part of that reason.

Beside him, he could feel the dismay radiating from DEA Agent Gratofsky. Gratofsky likewise had never met Gatsbacher, but he immediately recognized the type: geek. Not just _geek_, but 'weird' and 'off-beat' and a few other words that wouldn't make it into polite conversation at the dinner table and that included any dinner with Mother and Father Gatsbacher—assuming that Gatsbacher actually had parents. David wouldn't put it past Gatsbacher to have emerged fully formed from a test tube.

He got the feeling that Gatsbacher liked it that way. Gender was a matter of opinion, and the clothing that he/she/it wore was baggy and hid any curves that might have served as identification. Gatsbacher wore six earrings: two on the left ear, three on the right, and one in the nose. The mascara could be either effeminate or goth or—as David has once discovered—the result of Gatsbacher blinking his/her/its eyelashes in a pot of coffee grounds to see if the resultant smudges looked anything like the corpse that the M.E. had just released.

The one thing, however, that David was more than willing to admit was that Gatsbacher was good at Forensics. The man—and David used the term loosely and with great doubt that he was correct—knew his stuff. He/she/it could come up with the most esoteric explanation of the facts, back it up with scientific evidence, and then move on to the next completely unrelated forensic topic, which explained how Gatsbacher could discuss the life-cycle of the amoeba one day and the technique for making industrial size batches of hydrochloropermanganese the next.

Genius met geek, and somewhere, somehow, David knew, a miracle was occurring. It wasn't occurring in front of him—this would be better categorized as a disaster in the making—but in order to keep the fates balanced there had to be a miracle occurring on some distant planet.

Gatsbacher blinked disdainfully. "We'll see."

Larry looked at his watch. The message was clear: _you may have time to waste, but I do not_.

* * *

Don pulled the Suburban up to the front of the FBI Headquarters, ignoring the honks of rightfully annoyed motorists objecting to the double park. "Bausch, go and fill in our Forensics people about what we're looking for in Magenbrot's room," he ordered, hoping that the DEA agent wouldn't give him any back talk. "I'll call ahead and let them know you're coming."

"We could do that over the phone, Eppes—"

"I need to drop my brother off," Don interrupted.

"Let 'im take a cab. We got work to do—"

This time Don did glare at the DEA agent. "Agent Bausch," he said crisply, "Dr. Eppes is a valued FBI consultant, and has extended his efforts on our behalf at substantially reduced rates on many occasions. We have one of the highest clear rates in the country, based partly on his results. Can your department make the same boast? I thought not." Don wished that his arms were long enough to reach over both Charlie and Bausch to open the far door for emphasis, to tell Bausch that getting out of this truck was what he needed to do. He settled for putting the engine in park.

"Don, it's okay. I can pick up the Red line to campus—"

"Shut up, Charlie." Don didn't take his attention away from Bausch. "Agent Bausch and I are establishing the proper pecking order, aren't we, Agent Bausch?"

"Eppes—"

"This is an FBI case, Bausch." Don had had enough. "You have had two months on it, and you've gotten nowhere. If you had, we might not have had a murder victim. But you did, and he's dead, and it's now an FBI case. You can have in on my terms, or I can send you back to the DEA, tail between your legs." He folded his arms in a gesture of finality. "Your call, Bausch. My way or the highway."

"Eppes—"

"I mean it, Bausch. Your witnesses may not be the nicest of people, but they still deserve common courtesy. You may have screwed up their cooperation for good. Last chance, Bausch."

"Eppes—"

Don pulled out his cell. "Colby? Don. Listen, call staffing and let 'em know that we're going to need a few more bodies for your sting tonight. That's right; I'm pulling the DEA boys—"

"Okay!"

Don kept his eyes on Bausch. "Hold a sec, Colby." He cocked his head. "You have something to say, Bausch?"

Bausch ground his teeth. Don had heard that sound before on other occasions and from other men, and was impressed. It sounded as though Bausch's dentist had replaced the man's dental enamel with titanium steel to withstand the strain. "You win, Eppes."

It would have felt good to rub it in, but Don withstood the temptation. He spoke into his cell. "Never mind, Colby. Proceed as planned." He closed up the phone and turned to Bausch. "Forensics?"

Bausch glowered, but didn't put up any further fight. "Fourth floor?"

"Basement."

"Right." Bausch slammed the Suburban door shut a little harder than he needed to and stalked off across the cement paving to the entrance to FBI headquarters.

Charlie slid over, taking advantage of the released space. "He doesn't like me, does he?"

"Not sure he likes anyone, buddy." Don put the car in drive and, checking the flow of traffic, pulled out. "You're just a convenient target."

"Yeah." Don heard Charlie work to stifle the sigh underneath. Charlie had always been the 'convenient target', ever since schools had invented that diabolical task called 'math homework'. _It's the way of the world, buddy. The strong pick on the weak, and strong these days doesn't refer to just muscles. Weren't you complaining to me the other day how that professor in the optics department was abusing some of his grad students?_

Don kept half his attention on traffic, sliding to a stop in front of a yellow light on the verge of turning red. The other half he turned back onto his brother. "Give."

"Don?"

Charlie was going to make this difficult. Don sighed. "There, in Magenbrot's room. You thought of something. What was it?"

"I don't know what you mean—"

"This is a murder investigation, Charlie, with national security implications. You know what that means." He pulled the Suburban forward, easing it onto the freeway back toward CalSci. "Don't make me sorry that I dumped Bausch, buddy."

Charlie's shoulders slumped.

"Buddy?" _You've got until we get to CalSci, then I'm turning the screws, bro_.

Heavy sigh.

_Won't work, buddy. I'm immune, remember?_

Charlie looked out through the window of the Suburban, eyeing the low-rider beside them that was bouncing up and down on hopped up pistons trying to entice the jailbait another car over into passing the time of day. He wrenched his attention back to his brother. He cleared his throat. "The pen."

"The pen with your name on it. The fancy one, on Magenbrot's desk." Don just wanted to be certain.

Charlie cleared his throat once more. "Yes."

"I take it that you don't think that Magenbrot picked it up from your office." Not exactly a wild guess, not the way Charlie was behaving.

"No. No, that's not where he got it." The words were so low that Don could barely hear them over the noise of the traffic outside.

"Where did he get it, buddy?"

Another sigh. "At Lavozzi Industries." Now Charlie did look over at his brother. The move was wasted; Don's eyes needed to be on the road but that didn't matter to Charlie. "I remember Tony LaVozzi admiring the pen, the last time I was there. We got to talking about the lecture that I did—Tony is interested in a lot of stuff, always trying to figure out how to make things work to his advantage—and I accidentally left it behind. Tony called me a few days later and I promised to swing by to pick it up. I—I forgot about it for a week or so, and then when I did remember, Tony couldn't find it. It was just a pen; we let it drop."

"Looks like we found it, buddy." Nothing like stating the obvious. "Listen, I'm going to need you to get me in to see LaVozzi. You can do that?"

"I can do that," Charlie affirmed. "In fact, Tony suggested this afternoon, said he'd clear his calendar for us. But—Don?"

"Yes, Charlie?"

"You won't be able to take Agent Bausch with you, or any of his people."

Why was Don not surprised? "Don't tell me; let me guess. They've already made themselves _persona non grata_, right?"

"Yeah. Tony was pretty clear about that. They stormed in, he said, waving a bunch of warrants, and he had to call down his own security people to keep them from invading the secure areas, areas that were legally off-limits for national security reasons. He said that his legal people are filing complaints or injunctions or whatever, and that he's made a formal request to the Pentagon to get the DEA to back off."

Don gave a tuneless whistle. "Bausch did it up right, didn't he?"

"Yeah. Don't get me wrong, Don; Tony wants this cleared up as much as anybody, but he's not willing to work with the DEA. He made that pretty clear."

* * *

David turned so that no one could hear him on the internal phone outside in the hallway beyond Forensics. He had dialed the four digit extension that led to Megan Reeves' desk, promising all sort of sacrifices to whatever god was looking favorably upon him that his fellow agent be there at this exact moment in time.

"Reeves."

_Yes!_ "Megan, it's David." He began to talk very fast. "Megan, I really need your help. I made this really bad judgment call, and I need your help right now!"

"Whoa! David, slow down! What's the problem? I'll be on my way." She paused, puzzled. "David, where are you?"

David lowered his voice even further. "Forensics."

"Forensics?" More than puzzlement. This had turned into astonishment. "David, what's going wrong in Forensics?" Megan recalled what David had said. "What bad judgment call, David?"

Groan. "I introduced Larry Fleinhardt to Gatsbacher."

"Oh. Oh, dear." Megan swallowed hard. "I'll be down immediately."


	10. Brigthest Crayon 10

There were a lot of CEO's in corporate America who were reaping the bounties of their positions with expensive furnishings and bonuses and a dozen or so assistants whose only function in life was to tell their boss how wonderful he was.

Tony LaVozzi wasn't one of them.

LaVozzi's executive suite was only a little bit larger than Charlie's own office at CalSci, but it seemed much larger due to the increased cleanliness. Picking up the piles of term papers from around the edges of the room would do that, Don realized. Other than that, it looked a great deal like his brother's office, even including a white board pushed off to the side. Don glanced idly at the white board: instead of numbers, this one contained esoteric chemical symbols which were as clear to Don as Charlie's equations. There was money floating around this organization, of that Don was certain, but not a lot of it had stopped in this room.

'Short and squat' described LaVozzi. 'Swarthy' would also work: "second generation Sicilian," LaVozzi proudly declared himself. "Put myself through school, and built this place up from the rocks on the ground."

He had a handshake to match, Don found, a grip that felt like it could crush fingers if the owner so desired.

Don had put a lot of thought into how to begin this questioning, how to set off on the right foot and demonstrate that the FBI was not the DEA. He had an 'in' with Charlie, and it was up to Don to make it pay off. "Mr. LaVozzi—"

"Call me Tony," LaVozzi boomed, a surprisingly large voice from a short man. "Call me Tony. You're Charlie's brother, right? The FBI guy?" He leaned forward over the metal desk. "Listen, whatever you want, you got. I got problems, and I ain't got solutions. Hell, I ain't even got a precipitate."

"Chemistry humor," Charlie murmured, at Don's blank look. "Tony's Ph.D. is in chemical engineering."

Don was beginning to feel very under-educated.

LaVozzi waved it away. "Long time ago. I ain't no genius like yer brother, Eppes. Charlie, here, he's the genius." LaVozzi leaned over, as if talking confidentially. "Just between us chickens, if it wasn't for him, Lavozzi Industries would still be just a two bit operations, scroungin' in the dust. Charlie figured out how to get us making the quantities that the Pentagon wanted, and we are now a top name military contractor. Hell, we're even making a name for ourselves overseas. My attorneys are asking the State Department for permission to talk to Great Britain and a couple of other allies."

Charlie heaped the praise in the other direction. "Don, Tony is being modest. What he's not telling you is that the concept for this fluid cleanser is his baby. He developed it, he nursed it through the production phase, and he sold the Pentagon on it."

Don was glad that there was a mutual admiration society going on in front of him. It was certainly easier to deal with than the barbed wire fences that the DEA folks put up, even if it wasn't getting him any further with the case.

It was as if Tony LaVozzi had read his mind. "Like I said, Eppes; I got problems, and I need help. It ain't a drug problem, no matter what those idiots at the DEA are telling you. I know my people, Eppes, and believe you me: it ain't drugs. It ain't booze, it ain't drugs, it ain't gambling."

"So what is it?" Don reached for the invitation extended on an engraved silver platter.

LaVozzi worked his jaw, struggling to make the words come out. He coughed savagely. "I just got the word: somebody overseas has stolen the formula to my product."

"What?" Even Charlie was appalled by that announcement. "Tony, how could they? You've got incredible security around here."

"Not good enough, Charlie." The disgust was uppermost. LaVozzi turned to Don. "You know what this means, Eppes."

Don did. "Considering that this was a military contract? Yes, I think any half decent lawyer could make a case for treason somewhere in here. Do you have any details? How do you know that they stole it?"

LaVozzi looked away. "That's just it; I'm not certain. Just got some rumors floating back through some of my sources." He looked back at the FBI agent. "Rumors would be enough to kill my contract, Eppes. Rumors would be enough to haul my ass in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee for some tough questions that I ain't got answers to." He put his hands flat on his desk, carefully, pretending that the knuckles weren't white. "You get to the bottom of this, Eppes, and I'll make sure that the Pentagon knows who to be grateful to. You got the run of my place. Clean it out, Eppes."

* * *

David sat on a stool in the corner of the Forensics lab, staring disconsolately at his hands. He looked up at Megan in bewilderment.

She patted him on the shoulder. "There, there, David. It all worked out."

"Yes, but how? I thought I'd just started World War III," David groaned. "I thought that it would be this great idea to show the DEA cameras to Larry."

"It was, David," Megan told him. "You knew that Larry had done some work with digitals. It was a reasonable thing to do."

"Right. Only Larry couldn't get them to work with his equipment, so I brought both the cameras and Larry here where we have better equipment. I thought that Forensics was so backed up that it would take them forever to get to this job. So I brought Larry in. Then Gatsbacher spotted us."

"Ah. That was the shriek that rocked the building. I heard that there's a bet floating through the IT department as to whether it's going to be a five or a six on the Richter Scale."

"Yes, well…" David looked even more unhappy. "Gatsbacher wants to know what we're doing. So Larry tells him. Gatsbacher tells Larry that he doesn't know what he's doing."

"Oops," Megan murmured.

"Right. Oops. So Larry tells Gatsbacher that Forensics doesn't have the right equipment, either. Gatsbacher begged to differ."

Megan raised her eyebrows. "'Begged to differ'?"

"I swear, that's what Gatsbacher said, Megan. 'Begged to differ'."

"David, Gatsbacher never 'begs to differ'. Gatsbacher always tells you off using thirteen different curse words in six different languages, all selected for maximum intensity." She shook her head. "Whatever possessed you to introduce those two?"

"I didn't mean to," David groaned. "I thought we could just slide in and out with whatever Larry needed. I never thought that we'd be caught by Gatsbacher." He gestured at the pair in the far corner, thick as thieves and growling at each other using language that neither agent understood. The words that the two scientists were using were marginally in English, but of such technological import that comprehension by mere mortals was out of the question. Gratofsky, the DEA agent, sat on another stool trying to keep out of the way, his jaw hanging open at the speed with which the pair was working. "Look at them!"

"Hah!" Gatsbacher shouted suddenly. "I _told_ you that would work, Fleinhardt!"

"It only _works_ because _I_ reconnected the diodes, Gatsbacher! Without that—"

"Shut up and hit the switch, _Fleinhardt_."

"_You_ hit the switch, _Gatsbacher_. _I'm_ holding this lead in place, since _you_ don't have enough clips and _I_ don't have enough hands to compensate for _your_ lack."

The miracle that David Sinclair both desired and feared occurred.

The screen to which the errant DEA camera had been attached lit up. Everyone in the room gawked at the results.

The figure on the tape was grainy, not completely cleared up despite the efforts of the two geeks, but still recognizable. The shaggy blond head poked around the office in question, dusting here, emptying the wastebasket there, generally ambling back and forth. He opened a drawer to poke his nose inside, found nothing to interest him, and moved on to the next item. It happened to be the DEA camera itself, and the nose on the shaggy blond head grew in size so that it covered the entire picture. David was certain that if they froze the frame, he'd be able to count the nose hairs on the figure's face.

As far as identification, there was no question. David had seen that face many times in pictures over the last couple of days. He'd even seen it in person, lying at the foot of a set of concrete stairs in the facility of the LaVozzi Industries, bleeding onto the cement.

It was Reuben Magenbrot.

"I would suggest," Gatsbacher sniffed, "that this man is responsible for the lack of film quality. According to the digital parameters, this section and the next of the recording is the only part with movement on it, and both show the same person: blond, of medium height and weight. No one else has approached the camera."

Gratofsky spoke up. "Not possible. That's the dead guy, and we've already established that he didn't have enough going on upstairs to be able to fiddle with our stuff. The guy didn't even have enough smarts to be able to drive a car. This would be beyond him."

"Not necessarily," Larry said. "A reasonable hypothesis is that the digital recording was damaged by an external magnetic force, obtainable by anyone with a modicum of discretionary income."

"Wait a minute." Megan needed to clarify things for herself. "You're saying that someone came by with a magnet, and wiped out the data on the camera?"

"Exactly." Larry beamed at her. "These renderings are quite consistent with a magnetic interference. While I am willing to entertain the notion of supernatural forces providing such interference, I suspect a more mundane explanation is closer to reality."

"What kind of magnet? Are we talking something as simple as a kid's toy?" Megan asked.

"Possibly, though unlikely," Larry mused.

"I don't know. Kid's toys are getting pretty fancy these days, Fleinhardt," Gatsbacher put in.

"It would be more likely to have been obtained at a scientific supply store," Larry opined. "Perhaps a place that specializes in offering equipment for high school science teachers to use in demonstrations involving magnetism?"

"Hah. Try a place for hiking. Some of the magnets on those compasses are strong enough to cause a shift in the earth's crust." One of Gatsbacher's earrings glittered in the harsh Forensics room lighting.

David redirected the discussion. "Anybody remember a magnet among Magenbrot's personal effects?" He looked at Megan and at Gratofsky. Both shook their heads; Gratofsky went so far as to shrug. "Then we're still looking for someone else. If Magenbrot did it, then his killer took the magnet from his things." He stood up. World War III was over, and both sides appeared intact. David resolved to escape before more damage could be inflicted. "Let's go see if Don's back; let him know what we've discovered," he said, shepherding the others out of Forensics.

Not quite. Gatsbacher held David back by the sleeve. "Bring Fleinhardt here again," he/she/it purred. "Quite an _interesting_ little man." Gatsbacher licked his/her/its lips.

David looked at Megan, her head close to Larry's, sharing some private thought while walking down the hallway. He looked back at Gatsbacher, whose private thoughts David truly did _not_ want to share. "Sure," he lied.


	11. Brightest Crayon 11

LaVozzi led them down the hallway, his heels clicking against the hard linoleum floors. Don couldn't help but glance into the offices as they passed by; the rooms, almost all of them, were clean and sparsely furnished, but larger than Don's own cubicle back at FBI headquarters. He shoved down his jealousy; this was private industry, and the perks tended to be nicer than for government wage-earners. The furniture was cheap and durable, but here and there an office boasted a nicer wood-tone desk. The whole place had an attitude of _we're here to work_ about it; none of the fancy and expensive plush carpeting that he'd seen in Magenbrot's home. _Going some_, Don thought, _when the cleaning people live better than the owner_.

LaVozzi couldn't help but read Don's mind. "Yeah," he said ruefully, "I keep thinking that I gotta get some kind of interior decorator in here, but the last one I hired ended up being really good at working with some of my supply houses, so I transferred her in there as a buyer and we kind of forgot about fixing up the place. Happens when you grow too fast."

"What Tony isn't saying," Charlie put in, "is that one year ago it was just him and a dozen technicians, eking out a living and hoping to strike it rich."

"Which we did," LaVozzi grinned. "Life is tough when you gotta worry about how to spend your money faster." Then the frown crept back into play. "Which is why I wanna get this thing cleared up fast. I got people depending on me, Eppes; people that've been good to me and I wanna be good back to 'em." He shook his head, not slowing his pace one iota. "These Better Day people; gotta wonder, Eppes. I hired the outfit 'cause I liked what they stood for. Paid 'em good money when I could've gotten the same service a lot cheaper. Thought they meant to look out for people who got a bum rap from life. Now they turn around and do this." He snorted. "I'd fire 'em on the spot, but the contract I got says three months notice. And the thing is, I got no proof that it's them, Eppes. That kid that died, he could be an innocent victim, too, ya know? But I hate to think that it might be one of my own."

"What have you done about it so far?" Don asked.

"I got my head security people on it," LaVozzi told him. "They've been poking around in people's lives, checking 'em out, seeing if anybody's suddenly come into any money."

"Any luck?"

LaVozzi snorted. "For me? No. One of my admin assistants, though, came under fire. A distant cousin with some bucks passed away suddenly in a car accident, left her a chunk. Gave my assistant heart failure until we could check out her story. She's clean."

Don went for another angle. "DEA thinks that drugs are flowing through here. What do you think?"

LaVozzi started to get angry, then thought better of it. He deflated. "Yeah. Yeah, we got some problems. Place like this, military contracts, we got pressure like you wouldn't believe."

_Right. Nothing like the pressure to solve a set of serial killings before someone else gets murdered_. _Nothing like the pressure to solve a murder in a government research facility_.

"You got pressure to keep up, you start looking for easy answers. Drugs is one of 'em, and pretty soon you got some people you can't trust."

"You do anything about it?"

"What can I do?" LaVozzi spread his hands wide. "I offered employee assistance programs. I get my security guys a dog to sniff 'em out. Nothing."

Don considered. "I may ask to have everyone tested."

LaVozzi stiffened. "That'll bring down the civil rights guys, Eppes."

Don shrugged. He'd been on the hot seat before. "Not if we make it voluntary, at least at first. And that will rule out a lot of people, let us concentrate on those who refuse, especially those who are in a position to pass confidential information." They arrived at the front entrance, a lobby with metal detectors and a couple of guards that LaVozzi greeted by name.

"Jimmy B., Eric, this is Special Agent Don Eppes, from the FBI. You give him whatever he asks for, ya hear?"

"Sure thing, boss," the one identified as Jimmy B. said. "Hey, Professor Eppes. How's it going?"

"Hey, Jimmy B.," Charlie returned. "How'd you do on your calc final? Jimmy's going to school in the evening, going after a degree in fluid mechanics," he confided to Don before turning back to the security guard.

"Aced it, doc," Jimmy B. said proudly. "Listen, you know anybody that can give me a hand with my physics course? The boss here, he got me through chemistry."

"Oh, I think I can scare somebody up," Charlie said with a smile. "You just let me know when."

Don turned them back to the problem at hand. "Guys, run me through your security procedure." He glanced at the metal detector ring that arched over the door. "One of your employees walks up to the front. What then? You walk him through the ring?"

"Pretty much," the other guard, Eric, said. "You go through the metal detector, you sign in on the books, and you swipe your ID card through the reader." He jerked his thumb up toward the ceiling. "We've got cameras recording the whole thing, and we keep the records for a week."

Don nodded; it was similar to what he'd seen in other military grade research facilities. So far, no surprises. "I'll be asking to see those tapes for the night in question. Hang onto them."

"Will do."

"For now, how about the books? Can I see them?"

At LaVozzi's encouraging nod, Eric brought out the sign-in book. "We go through about two of these every month," he offered. "You sign in here, with the time, and then you sign again when you go out."

Don perused the lines. "What about people who don't sign out? What's going on here, like with this one?"

Jimmy B. shrugged. "These people have left by another exit, usually the one in back. One every week, we go back and reconcile the signatures, make sure that everybody's leaving when they should. Never had any problems."

Don glided his finger down the list of names. None of them looked familiar, until he came to those entering at approximately seven in the evening. Reuben Magenbrot's name was there, as well as his girl Nancy Merrin. There was some half dozen names that he associated with Make A Better Day, all written in a determinedly clear hand, each one eager to identify themselves properly. "These guys also have ID cards? The people from Better Day?"

Jimmy B. nodded. "Every one of them. We color their ID's with a light blue background, so that we can differentiate them from our own employees. We run them through a background check, though. That's part of the contract, part of the rules. They can't substitute anyone onto their team without it."

LaVozzi agreed. "Makes it a little tough for them to clean the whole place when someone calls out sick, but better a little dirt than a leak. I told 'em that from the get go."

Don kept looking at the sign in ledger. "And they always come in through this entrance? Go through this gate."

Eric shook his head. "Not always. Usually; a group of 'em arrives together. But every now and again some of them walk in through the back entrance. They still go through the same security measures: the metal detector, the cameras."

"Don?" Charlie looked puzzled. What was Don after?

Don ignored his brother. "What about the night that Magenbrot died? Do you have those records?"

"Right here. We've been keeping that under lock and key," Jimmy B. said. "We started a new book the next day, so that we wouldn't have to worry about losing any records for any investigation."

"Where are the records for that night?"

"Right here." Jimmy B. flipped to a page near the end of the book. "They're all here, the whole crew from Better Day. We got Magenbrot's name right here. His girl Nancy is right above his." Jimmy B. grinned wistfully. "Nice guy. We were teaching him manners, taught him to let his girl through first, to be polite. Ben picked up on that real fast, really wanted to treat Nancy right. It was cute," he sighed. "I should find a girl that adored me like she adored Ben."

Don grunted. "You and me both. You were here that night? You saw 'em both come in?"

"Yup. I was pulling a double that night. I've got mid-terms on Thursday, and I needed that night off, so I switched." Jimmy B. turned, worried, to LaVozzi. "I can still have that night off, right, boss?"

"You got it, Jimmy. School's important."

Don turned to LaVozzi. "How many other entrances do you have?"

Eric answered instead. "Three, but only one—the back door—in use. The other side door is wired for emergencies only, and the loading dock is designed for truck deliveries."

Don fastened the polite smile on his face. "I'll need to go through every entrance, just to get an idea of how people and things enter and leave this facility."

That wasn't what Charlie had in mind. "Uh, Don?"

"Charlie?"

"I've got office hours this afternoon."

"Not a problem, Charlie," LaVozzi cut in. "You came here with your brother, right? I'll have one of my people give you a lift to where ever you need to go."

"Thanks, Tony." Charlie's face echoed his relief. "Don, you'll be okay here without me?"

"I think I can manage," Don told him, keeping the laughter out of his voice. _After all, I've been doing this FBI thing for a number of years…_

* * *

Charlie decided that he really _really_ liked office hours. When all was said and done, it was a good time to be a professor.

A lot of his colleagues wouldn't say the same thing, would only put in the minimum amount of time as mandated by their contract or their department head or by their guilty conscience, but Charlie realized that he never minded that particular job requirement. It was, as always, the student.

It was like teaching. If forced to tell, then Charlie would have to admit that he enjoyed teaching the upper level courses not because of the material but because of the students. Those taking those upper level courses were really interested in math, had chosen to make it their life work, and were willing to put in the effort to learn what Charlie had to teach. His freshman calc courses, interesting as they were, contained a large number of students who were there because freshman calc was part of their degree requirements, and they couldn't progress in their own major until they could demonstrate successful completion of same. Those were the students who were satisfied to creep by with a passing grade and the same students who rarely, if ever, darkened his office door.

But—office hours. Most students who came by were genuinely interested in learning whatever concept eluded them. Sometimes they came as singletons, and sometimes they came in a mob. Charlie had to admit, he really enjoyed the mobs, because it was like teaching a class without preparation: gloriously stimulating, coming up with the correct theory on the fly and seeing the knowledge take root in those brains. It was, Charlie had decided, similar to his work with Don and the FBI, in that there was a theory or an analysis for each situation that they presented to him, and it was up to Charlie to figure out, on the spur of the moment, exactly which theoretical equation would advance the case.

This afternoon's office hours were of the singleton variety, and Charlie found his attention drawn not so much by the math content—that was interesting enough, since Sarah was in one of his upper level courses—but by the student.

Sarah was in a wheelchair.

Charlie had always realized that, had always seen her position the chair toward the front of every classroom in the aisle, using the desk top of the adjoining seat to plop her backpack of books and pencils and laptop. He'd never mentioned it, had always found that his attention was caught more by her ability to perform math than it was by her ambulatory limitations. He'd always intended to ask, assuming that he could figure out a polite way of doing so, but the math had always been so fascinating…

The question had taken on a new meaning for Charlie, with Don's case. Charlie's case, too, he corrected himself wryly. It wasn't every day that Professor Charles Eppes found himself questioned on suspicion of murder.

Sarah responded with a wistful smile. "I have to give you credit, Prof. Eppes. You lasted almost three years before you asked. In my book, that's something of a record."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be rude. I just…" Charlie looked down at his shoes, not certain of what he meant.

Sarah was. She'd been through this on an almost daily basis. "You weren't being rude, Dr. Eppes. I get tired of being asked, though. It's like I have to apologize for not being like everyone else, or at least have an explanation."

"You don't have to apologize—" Charlie broke off. He redistributed his thoughts. "You _shouldn't_ have to apologize," he said instead. "You know, I think I'm more annoyed at myself, now that you put it that way. Why should you feel that you have to have an explanation? I don't have any right to ask."

"It was a car accident," Sarah said.

"You don't have to—"

"You're right; I don't have to," Sarah interrupted. "That doesn't mean that I can't." She took a deep breath. "It took me a long time to get to this point, to get to a place in my own head that I can deal with it." She looked at him fiercely. "I'm not going to let anyone take that away from me."

Charlie was taken aback by her intensity. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Sarah took another deep breath. "I mean, I'm as good a person—and as bad—as everyone else. Not better, and not worse. But, because of a drunk driver four years ago, I now have medical problems that will stay with me until my grave; a death that will come a decade sooner for me instead of you because of those problems. I now have places that I can't go because buildings built decades ago used staircases instead of elevators. Until and unless medical science comes up with a way to rebuild the spinal cord, I'm never going to be able to run a marathon."

"Did you want to, before?"

Sarah stared at him. "Want to what?"

"Run a marathon." Charlie gestured helplessly. "Did you do a lot of running before—" another helpless wave—"that?"

Sarah giggled suddenly. "Nope. Hated it. Hated gym class, in high school." She regained her equilibrium. "It's the old idea of wanting something because you can't have it." She cocked her head at him. "You've been meeting with a bunch of us, haven't you?"

"Well, not exactly like you—"

"I should hope not. I'm unique. Each of us is unique. What's your question, Professor Eppes?" she asked, clearly pleased at being the one to have the answers for a change.

"It's…" Charlie trailed off, not certain how to ask. "I mean, you seem so at peace with yourself. I mean, with what's happened."

Sarah nodded; this was something she was familiar with. "It wasn't easy," she admitted. "It took years, and I'll still throw myself a good pity party sometimes. But somebody taught me that getting angry at the world only makes things worse—gives you stomach ulcers, for one thing—and gets in the way of life. You can be angry all the time, but there's a price to pay. You meet some of us like that?"

Charlie had to agree.

Sarah sighed. "Yeah. We call it 'the attitude'. Sure, there are a lot of things to get angry over, from the stupidity of various officials to the idiocy of people who think that they can take advantage of you because you have a disability. Sometimes the worst is those people who pity you; I really hate that, you know? But being angry all the time is even worse. We tell 'em: get over yourself. Grow up. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Or, better yet, ask for tequila and salt. Did you know that I'm one of the luckier students on the CalSci campus?" she asked with a quick change of subject. "Because of my accident, I'm a couple of years older than most students, older than twenty-one. That makes me one of the few juniors legally allowed to drink beer," she grinned. Then she grew serious again. "Don't let 'the attitude' get to you, Professor Eppes. It's their problem, and not yours. Just keep treating everyone you know—with and without disabilities—as an individual."

* * *

Don stared at the sign in book at the back entrance, wishing it held the answer to this case. There was something here—he _knew_ it—something that would crack the case wide open. It was staring him in the face, if only he could figure out what it was.

He turned to the security guard. "This is just like the front entrance, right? People walk in through the metal detector, slide their ID through the reader, and then sign in."

"Pretty much." This security guard's name was Marjorie, Tony LaVozzi had told him before dropping him off here, and Marjorie was above suspicion. Marjorie was Tony's niece, making some money on the side to help afford law school. "We don't have an ID reader on this side. We used to, but it broke down and every time it comes back from being fixed, it breaks down again. We just do without it. Cameras, too. We get so few going through this back entrance that we don't bother with them. Maybe now we'll start," she added grimly.

"Um." Don continued to stare at the sign in book. "So everybody signs in here?"

"Everyone," Marjorie assured him. She grinned. "Want to see the names of the cockroaches that live in the basement?" she joked. "Moe, Larry, and Curly. They sometimes hike over to the pizza place, and have to sign back in with anchovies on their breath." Then she became somber. "You get the guy that killed Ben, Special Agent Eppes. Ben was special to us. It didn't matter that he worked for another company; a contractor. You get to know some of them, and Ben was special. He wanted to make something of himself, and some of our guys—especially a couple of 'em in the labs—they used to take him into the lab and let Ben hold some of the test tubes to pour some liquids back and forth. Ben loved it. He'd boast about helping our people."

"You knew him?"

"I did. I won't say that everyone did. Most everyone went home at five, before Ben and the others came in to clean. I usually work the evening shift, so I used to see him a lot."

"Were you on the night that Ben was killed?" Was this the lead that he needed? "Did you see him come in?"

Marjorie nodded. "He came in with the rest of them. I helped get them through the detector, and then slide their ID's through the reader. That was the easy part. Everyone of the people from Better Day takes pride in signing their names, and that usually takes forever. That night was no different."

"Wait a minute," Don objected. "I thought you said that the ID reader was broken."

Marjorie shrugged. "This one is. I was on the front desk that night. Everyone came in through the front, and used the ID reader in the front."

It was there. The clue was so close he could taste it. There was something that Don knew was there, and it was on the tip of his tongue, and he almost knew what it was. "You were in front. On the front desk. Who was back here?"

Marjorie shook her head. "I'm not sure. I could find out, if you like. Actually, that would be easy. When we come onto the station, we sign in ourselves, as guards. It would take some checking, though; we usually stick the part-timers back here, since it doesn't get as much traffic, and we've got a lot of part-timers on the evening shift. Guys getting some extra money to get by." She pulled over the sign in book, scanning through the signatures. "This book isn't as long. Like I said, most people come in through the front, so that front book gets filled up pretty quick. We're talking last night, so probably Peter was on…" She trailed off, running her finger along the signatures. "Yup, it was Peter. He signed on at four thirty-two PM yesterday. A couple of the Better Day people came through here, probably missed the bus that the company sends for them." She hesitated. "This is odd."

Don went on alert. "What?"

Marjorie pointed. "That's Ben's signature. I could have sworn that I saw him come in through the front entrance last night."

Don's instincts were screaming at this point. "You're sure? Magenbrot came in the front? Could you have made a mistake?"

"Yeah, I could have." Marjorie's expression begged to differ.

"There's one way to find out." Don took hold of the sign in book. "We're going to do a little comparing of the records."

Which was how Special Agent Don Eppes discovered that, among his many talents, Reuben Magenbrot apparently was capable of signing in twice on the night of his murder.


	12. Brightest Crayon 12

"You think we can trust 'im?" Lomb whispered into Colby's ear.

Both Lomb and Colby were huddled together in the bushes surrounding an out of the way area of Fairview Park. It was an ideal place for a meet: it was difficult to see the grove for the trees, even with binoculars, and it wasn't a place that people tended to dawdle. Even those who were present were of the jogging variety, and disappeared into the adjoining forestry as quickly as those jogging legs would take them. It was an area where more than one mugging had taken place; why, Colby had no idea, since the ones mugged usually had little to no cash on them and left their credit cards in their respective vehicles against such an occurrence.

Today—this evening, rather, as dusk was falling—it was the meeting place for the Zoo Bangers, their customer, and a squad of FBI enforcement agents. The Zoo Bangers were fewer in number than usual, and those present had already been promised that they would 'slip through the fingers' of the enforcement types. It was over Bausch's objection that this would happen and Don, wrestling down a gloat, was happy to ride over the DEA agent's objection. They were after the customer, and it was national security, and one had to set priorities, Don reminded him.

"Trust 'im?" Colby repeated. "Not a chance, man. Way I see it, we're lucky that they showed at all. We could've been holding this tea party all by our little lonesomes." He held up the camera that he'd signed out of Equipment, the thing heavy with gadgets that would see through the dark and zero in on a gnat at fifty paces. The flak vest that he wore was only for emergencies; Colby and the others had no intention of muscling in on the action unless something unfortunate went down. This was one buy that was going to go on unmolested, if Colby had anything to say about it.

Lomb looked nervously at his watch. "What if the guy doesn't show?"

Colby shrugged nonchalantly. "Then you and I wasted a perfectly good night out here when we could have been looking for the perfect ten in an L.A. bar, guy." He aimed the camera toward the scene below, appreciating how the heat-sensitive scope made the scene jump out in bold relief. This camera was high end stuff, he grinned, and Colby's tech-lust was in full swing, playing with buttons and dials until the camera was capable of recording the scene below in what looked like a 3D holograph.

There were only four of the Zoo Bangers milling around, Snake and three others holding a small bag that, Colby assumed, contained the coke that the mark was buying. If they could ID the buyer, so the theory went, it would go a long way toward solving the mess at Lavozzi Industries. There were trees all around the target zone, and Colby pushed and pulled at the various dials to make the area come clear. With any luck, he'd get a good head shot of the buyer, and that would be that. He'd selected this particular vantage point with that in mind: far enough away not to be seen, yet close enough to get what he needed with the high-end telephoto lens.

The radio at his shoulder chuckled quietly at him. "Station two. Car pulling into Lot Six. Plates are blacked out. Do you want me to clean them up?"

Colby tapped his own radio. "That's a negative, Station Two. Maintain your position. We don't want to spook this dude." The camera would do a better job of identification, and the resulting photo could also make a courtroom appearance.

"Roger, that. Maintaining position."

Colby chanced a glance at his 'partner', once again grateful that he'd chosen to keep the DEA agent next to him for this part of the case. Lomb was practically dancing on his toes like a toddler, he was so eager to arrest someone. The sight of the Zoo Bangers in the grove below only inflamed the man's pursuit instincts. "Keep it cool, Lomb."

Lomb tossed a glare in Colby's direction, and Colby chose to consider it as annoyance that an arrest wasn't going to made rather than irritation at Colby himself. Lomb knew the stakes here. Colby turned his attention back to the scene, switching the view back to natural colors.

One person advanced toward the group of four Zoo Bangers. Colby zeroed in on him immediately, grateful for the heads up from Station Two. _Click_. Too far to get a really good look, but there were plenty of shots left. _Click_. Colby paid attention to what the man looked like, in case he could make an immediate identification: somewhere in the neighborhood of five foot ten, blond hair, slender and weighing approximately one fifty to one hundred sixty pounds. _Click_. Moved smoothly, as someone who worked out regularly. _Click_. Still too far away to identify, although these pictures could likely be enhanced to make up for that lack.

Colby watched as the buy went down. _Click_. The bag that the Zoo Bangers had brought was duly examined and changed hands, and a large case was opened and shut. Colby assumed that it contained the agreed upon amount in small and used bills; it was what Colby himself would have done. _Click_. Beside him, he could feel Lomb shaking with tension.

"We can take him now," Lomb hissed.

"Nope," Colby started to say. "Not the plan—"

The rest of his words were cut off by a blast of searing agony. Fire punched a hole at the angle where his neck met his shoulder, at the exact point where the flak jacket ended. In retrospect, Colby was going to be able to say that he never heard it coming. "If I had, I would've ducked," he would say.

He didn't remember falling to the cold forest floor, only realizing that he was down when a stray twig dug itself into the sleeve opening of his vest. The camera dropped from suddenly uncoordinated fingers. Colby tried to grab for it, only to have parts of him scream in anguish so deep as to overwhelm the rational side of him. Movement—anything beyond a muscle-stiffening refusal to move—was out of the question.

Then Lomb was over him. "Shots fired!" the DEA agent yelled into his radio. "Man down!"

_Crap_, Colby moaned to himself. _Whole plan blown to smithereens_.

* * *

_Never thought I'd be grateful for these stairs_, Charlie thought to himself.

The discussion with his student Sarah had given Charlie Eppes a whole new perspective on life. Before, these concrete steps had been a nuisance, a way to get outside in a hurry if he wasn't willing to wait for the elevator to creak its way up and down the various levels to the Math building. Now they had become a privilege to use, a privilege that not everyone got to enjoy.

That led Charlie to wonder about other things. He'd always taken his own intellectual gifts for granted. They'd been a part of him for so long that he'd lost the ability to consider them as unique. His ability to think in mathematical terms was simply part of what made him Charlie Eppes.

How did Don see him? Perhaps as some sort of advanced calculator, a tool to use in his cases? No, that wasn't fair to Don. He and Don had struggled toward some sort of brotherly relationship over the last few years. Maybe it wasn't perfect—what relationship ever was?—but they were working at it.

_What would it be like to be on the other side, the side where you knew that your brains weren't as good as everyone else's?_ Charlie thought back to the young man who would come to his classes and sit quietly in the far end of the room, escaping shortly before the end of class. Reuben Magenbrot: Charlie now knew his name. What had driven Magenbrot to come to Charlie's classes? A hunger to learn? A need to tell himself that he could be as smart as everyone else around him? Charlie suddenly wished that he could have spoken to Magenbrot, could have arranged to help the young man learn math. Charlie's job was to teach the best and brightest of college students, but that didn't mean that others weren't equally worthy of being taught. Who knew what Magenbrot could have accomplished? It wasn't the speed in churning out calculations that mattered, and simply helping Magenbrot learn to manipulate numbers would have been the goal.

It was a goal that would never be accomplished.

Charlie sighed, and walked toward his car. It was just past dusk, and the lights in the parking lot had come on. There were only a few cars left—without thinking about it, Charlie estimated that there were sixteen over the two acre territory—and none of them were located anywhere near his own.

It had been a long day, starting with that DEA agent's baseless accusation of murder and then meeting with Tony LaVozzi again after six months or so, this time bringing Don along. It wasn't often that Charlie got to show Don what it was like on Charlie's side of the world. It was usually Charlie trying to look into Don's world and drooling with envy. That drooling had started as kids, when Charlie wanted to play with the big kids on Don's baseball team, and never being quite good enough. This time it was Charlie showing Don how he played on a scientific team, a team where Charlie was the one to slam in the homers with Don sitting on the bench taking notes.

Was that how Magenbrot felt? Never quite good enough? Wanting to play on someone's pick up baseball team, and always being the last kid to be picked for either side? Charlie felt his own face flush with remembered humiliation, a feeling that he hadn't had for twenty years. He didn't miss that feeling, and wished that he hadn't remembered it now. It was really a lot better being good at something, and having others recognize the talent.

His car was in a dark part of the parking lot, and Charlie suppressed a feeling of annoyance. He knew what his brother would say: _park under the light, Chuck. Look around, make sure there's no one there to mug you_. Well, there hadn't been much choice as to where to park when Charlie had pulled in this morning, and even less time to move the car to a more Don-approved spot. Charlie fumbled in his pocket, pulling out the keys to the Prius, suddenly grateful to be heading home. His body was still trying to be on Eastern Standard Time from the conference—had he been there only yesterday? It seemed not just a world away but several weeks as well.

There was no one around. Everyone else had left for the evening, home to good meals and family and whatever else they had planned for spare time. Charlie wondered if his father was cooking something. Probably; he would be celebrating Charlie's return from the conference, would want to prove to Charlie once again that a good home-cooked meal was worth more than any fancy seven course offering that the conference sponsors could take him to. Considering the quality of his father's lasagna, Charlie would agree. _Never realized how much I missed that lasagna when I was at Princeton with Mom…_

He hit the button to the auto-lock to open up the Prius. It chirped cheerfully at him.

Two shadows rose from the other side of the car, one very large and the other very short.

Charlie jerked in surprise, ready to run.

"Mr. Math Professor!" one called to him. It was Nancy, the girlfriend of the murder victim Reuben Magenbrot, and Charlie relaxed. There was no danger here, and the pair probably hadn't realized that waiting for him at his car would be interpreted as stalking. They just knew him as "Mr. Math Professor" and wanted him to help. Charlie could do that; he could help. He would listen to what they had to say, and then either tell Don what they'd said or whatever else that seemed to be the right thing to do.

"Hi, Nancy," he returned, squinting at the larger man. Nancy's friend was huge, well over six feet tall with shoulders that would have gone well on a football linebacker. Even in the dimming light of dusk Charlie could see the same heavy facial features that marked Nancy's own face. Clearly this was someone that Nancy knew well, probably someone who lived in the same home that Nancy and Magenbrot did with the same sort of disabilities. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Darren," Nancy introduced the tall man. "He's here to help us."

"That's good," Charlie said. "What can he help us with?"

"This." Darren stepped forward, a cloth in his hands.

Charlie had only a moment to register a foul smell coming from that cloth before Darren pressed it over Charlie's nose and mouth. Charlie pulled at Darren's arms, trying to pull it away, but it was like tugging at the trunk of a tree.

Charlie had no idea what the cloth had been soaked with, but it was clear what it was doing. Every breath that he tried desperately not to inhale sent more and more tendrils of blackness stabbing through his brain. He felt his knees giving way and refusing to do their job of keeping him upright.

The last sensation he had was of someone very strong lifting him into the air and depositing him onto the back seat of his own car.


	13. Brightest Crayon 13

"What the hell happened?" Fear made Don harsh as he jumped out of the Suburban, David and Megan beside him. "Where's Colby?" He spotted the ambulance off to one side; normally hard to miss with its lights twirling in the dark but now just one of many emergency vehicles. Don's own Suburban added its own strobe lights, the sound turned off, to the illumination on the scene.

FBI agents were milling about, snarling and looking for someone to arrest, no one yet taking control of the scene. _Colby_ had been in charge, Don realized grimly, and make a command decision. "Megan, start the questioning. I want to know what happened here. David, you're on the sniper. See if you can figure out a probable location for the shooter, see if he left any evidence behind."

"On it." Both of his agents headed off in opposite directions, grimly determined. This had hit too close to home.

Don hustled to where they were about to lift Colby on a stretcher into the ambulance, dismayed at the sight of the man he was proud to call his friend. Colby's face was white, beads of sweat dotting his forehead. Already a patch of bright red blood had leaked through the heavy dressing that one of the attendants had applied to his shoulder, and the scarlet gleamed in the light provided by the interior of the rig. Colby had already been secured to the stretcher, heavy leathers buckled over his chest and hips to prevent any more movement than necessary. A sinuous plastic tubing snaked out from underneath the blanket, delivering life-giving fluids of some sort, and another thicker tubing offered what Don expected was oxygen through a heavy mask smelling of plastic. A small monitor nearby chirped in a regular pattern, and Don assumed that was a tracing of Colby's heartbeat. It was regular, it was encouraging, and Don _wanted_ it to be Colby's.

"Colby?"

"Boss." Colby tried to open his eyes. "Don, I'm sorry—"

"Sorry?" Don was appalled. "Colby, you have nothing to apologize for. You got shot!"

The attendant stopped Don. "I'm sorry, sir. We need to move. He's still bleeding pretty heavily."

"I'm going with you." Don wasn't going to take no for an answer. He looked around. "Megan!" he called. He pulled out the keys to the Suburban and tossed them at her; she caught them with one hand. "I'm going with Colby. Catch up with me at the hospital."

Megan nodded. "I'll get Forensics to do the ballistics on the sniper, if David doesn't find anything."

Don agreed. "If they can't make this a priority, get Charlie to help out." He clambered into the ambulance, seating himself on the narrow bench in between several sets of equipment that he hadn't a clue what they were to be used for. They weren't needed on Colby, and that was more important.

Also more important: Colby's side of things. _This had better not be a death bed statement_, Don warned himself, his gut clenching fearfully. He put a gentle hand onto Colby's good shoulder. "Colby?"

"Don." Even the single word was an effort. Don had to lean close to hear.

"It's going to be okay, Colby. We're going to get the guy that did this." That was a promise, not just to Colby, but to every man and woman in the FBI.

"Don." There was something else worrying at Colby. "Don, the camera."

"Megan'll take care of it," Don told him. "Don't worry. We'll handle it."

"Good." Colby relaxed, and that was his undoing. Consciousness was no longer required once that item had been dealt with, and Colby was going under. "Got pictures of the dude…"

"That's good, Colby." Don squeezed the agent's shoulder, not certain if Colby was capable of coherent thought any longer.

It really _was_ good, Don realized grimly. The case was coming together, the pieces dove-tailing. Another twenty-four hours, and the thing would be solved. They'd made more progress in the last day than the DEA crew had made in two months. Bausch and his people hadn't figured out that Magenbrot had signed in twice nightly six times over the last three months. That was an important piece of evidence. Now coupled with the pictures that Colby had taken, Don figured that they might even be able to go for an arrest warrant before the night was over. It had better be an arrest warrant for one murder, and not two, Don vowed grimly.

Colby's lips moved. Don leaned in. "Colby?"

"Blond." Don could barely hear the word. "Five foot ten. One fifty…" The rest trickled off into incoherency. Don turned scared eyes onto the ambulance attendant.

That didn't help. The attendant turned to the driver. "Lead foot time, Denny. Let's make some haste, here."

* * *

Flu.

That had to be it. Charlie never felt this bad unless he was coming down with something vicious, like the flu. Or once, even worse, when he had to have his appendix out. That, he clearly remembered, had not been fun.

This was as bad as the appendix time: headache the size of one of Larry's super-novas. Nauseous to the point of not even able to stagger to the bathroom—

_Crap_.

Parts of Charlie seized control, doubling him over in an attempt to rid his body of the reek of something that lingered on his clothing, anything that remained inside his stomach, something that had caused him to black out, something associated with—

"Mr. Math Professor?"

It came crashing back to him: meeting Nancy and her immense friend in the CalSci parking lot. The friend had a cloth doused with the nausea-inducing chemical that lingered on Charlie's clothing, causing the reactions typical of nausea-inducing chemicals.

_Crap_. What was going on?

"He doesn't look too good, Darren. He's moaning. What should we do?"

"I don't know, Nancy. Should we ask him?"

"I don't think so. I don't think he's going to like us very much."

Charlie tried to open his mouth, tried to tell them, in very calm language, what he wanted them to do, and that it didn't matter whether he liked them or not.

It didn't work. Only more retching emerged, and Charlie's eyes watered.

"Let's take him inside."

Very good idea. Not that Charlie had any say in the matter. Darren picked him up as though he weighed next to nothing, and helped him to stagger into a large wooden building. Watery eyes prevented Charlie from seeing much of the building or his surroundings, and the mere fact of being upright drained the consciousness out of his brain. The last thing he heard was Nancy suggesting, "put him over there."

_Lovely idea. Just leave me here, on this fairly soft and hopefully waterproof surface, until the end of the world or the end of me, whichever comes first_. Charlie gratefully sank down into blackness yet again.

* * *

"Yeah, have 'em come up to ICU," Don was saying into his cell phone as he spotted Megan and David emerge from the hospital elevator. "He's not out of surgery yet, but they say it could be any time now. I want someone on him twenty-four/seven until I say otherwise. Thanks, Roy." He closed the little communication device, the snap echoing in the cold and empty hallway. At close to midnight, there was no one else around, not even any other families worried about loved ones. Don chose to take that as a sign that this was a good hospital, that the workers inside knew what they were doing and that the recipients of the care were doing just fine.

Heaven knew that Don wanted them to be experts in trauma care. The ride to the Emergency Department had been scary enough; Colby had lapsed into unconsciousness, and something had alerted the tech's that more than a little speed was called for. Don still firmly believed that the rig had rolled around at least three corners on only two wheels, and Colby had been hustled inside with the techs calling for immediate help. The trauma surgeon had spent only a moment with Don before heading into the OR, promising to keep Don posted.

That had been almost three hours ago. One of the OR techs, dressed in freshly changed scrubs, brought Colby's things out to Don. "I know you'll need to go through his things," the tech announced, assuming incorrectly that Colby was either a suspect or a victim that Don would be investigating. Don didn't bother to clear up the misconception, instead asking for a status.

The tech had shaken his head. "They just hung the fourth unit of blood," was all that he said.

Still no word. Don waved at David and Megan, as if there was anyone else that they would spot in these empty halls. He closed up his cell. "I've just arranged for a twenty-four hour guard on Colby. During the ride over, he sounded like he got a pretty good look at our perp; gave me a description. What did you get from the crime scene?"

Megan took the lead. "There were four of our guys, including Colby, and Lomb from the DEA. It was going along just as you and Colby had set it up: Colby signed out the camera equipment from Stores, including a telephoto lens with night vision. He put our guys around the site where the buy was going to go down. Everyone watched from a distance; no one could get a close enough look at our perp. Everyone figured that the camera would do a better job with the identification, especially since that part may end up in court. Colby kept Lomb with him. From some of the things our people were saying, Colby thought that there was a decent chance that Lomb would go off half-cocked and blow the whole sting. Our people agreed with Colby."

"Okay," Don drawled. Why did it feel like Megan was leading up to some unpleasant news?

David took over the story. "Our perp drove up in a black sedan; one of our guys offered to get the plates, but Colby held him back. Too much chance that the perp would notice people around and rabbit. Like Megan said: everyone was counting on the camera."

Don began to get a bad feeling about this.

"Next thing anyone knows, Lomb is yelling about Colby going down. Everybody agrees that the shot came out of nowhere. There was only one shot, and nobody saw the guy who did it. The Zoo Bangers scattered, the perp bailed, and everybody ran for Colby. It was by the book, boss," David added nervously. "Colby was down, and nobody knew if or where the next bullet was coming from. It was by the book," David repeated.

"It was by the book." Don wasn't looking to throw that book at anyone, least of all David or Megan—or Colby, assuming that the man lived. Don cast a glance down the hall, wishing that several someones would come out with a stretcher between them, machines beeping and whirring and telling them that Colby was going to be all right. "You get anything on the sniper? What about his nest?"

David shook his head. "Not a thing, boss. One shot. We found where he sat, and we even found where the shell hit the ground. The sniper calmly picked up the shell and took it with him when he left. We found the scuff marks in the dirt. Forensics is still on the scene, checking it out. They don't expect to get much. The guy was too careful."

"Damn." Don wasn't surprised. "What about our perp, the buyer? We get a good shot of him?"

David and Megan exchanged uncomfortable looks.

Cold ice pick in the gut time. "Guys? What about the camera?"

Megan offered herself up as the sacrificial goat. "The camera malfunctioned, Don."

"What?" Of all the things that could have happened, that was not high on Don's list. "What do you mean, malfunctioned? How? Who grabbed it after Colby went down?"

Megan and David looked at each other once again. "Lomb was the closest. But he says that he covered Colby, tried to keep him from hemorrhaging out. Says that he didn't touch it."

"What do our guys say?"

David lifted his shoulders. "Everybody was pretty busy, ducking and looking for the sniper. Nobody really paid attention to it."

Don took a deep breath. "Guys, after the trouble that the DEA had with their cameras at Lavozzi Industries, I find it more than a little disconcerting that our own camera bites the dust. What does Forensics say? Did they come out?"

"Oh, yeah, they came." Of that, David was certain. "After the meeting with Larry Fleinhardt, Gatsbacher has taken a very personal interest in this case. Gatsbacher came out and took charge of the camera, talking about getting pictures out of the thing or die trying."

"Yeah?" Don couldn't help it. "Gatsbacher actually got dragged out of the Forensics lab?"

David shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine, Don. I've never seen Gatsbacher so angry. It was like a personal affront, that the camera wouldn't put out the pictures that Colby took."

"Any chance that Colby didn't use it properly?"

"I thought of that, but you remember the Nelson-Whittaker case a few months ago? Colby used it then, no problem."

"How about it malfunctioning when Colby dropped it? Knocked the circuits out of whack, or whatever?"

"Gatsbacher says no."

The little ice pick continued to dig a larger and larger hole in Don's gut. "Tell Gatsbacher to dust it. I want to know who touched that camera," he announced grimly. "In the meantime, we're going to be investigating any male about five foot ten, blond, and a hundred and fifty pounds, and is involved with this case. Who fits Colby's description?"

"Magenbrot," Megan said immediately.

"He's dead. He wouldn't be making a buy. Try again."

"Bartholomew Gideon," David mused, "the CEO of Make A Better Day."

"Not a chance," Megan interrupted. "He's disabled, just like the rest."

"He didn't look disabled when I interviewed him."

"Multiple sclerosis," Megan informed them. "It's part of his medical history, and I found it on the website of Make A Better Day. They all seem to make a point of glorifying their disabilities; I pointed that out in my profile of Gideon, Don, when you get the chance to read it. His disability is MS. You can't see it, but he gets tired out about ten times as fast as anyone else."

"I didn't see a wheelchair in that office of his," David challenged.

"Not everyone with MS uses a wheelchair," Megan told him. "I have a distant cousin with MS; she was diagnosed almost ten years ago. You'd never know that she has an illness; she works out every day and bench presses more than I do. Gideon could be the same, with a mild case."

"So Gideon is a prime suspect," Don started to say, when the hospital elevator pinged. They looked up; a crowd of blue-scrubbed people hovered over a stretcher, holding various lines and machines. One person kept the ambu bag going, supplying breath to the unconscious figure via a tube that make Don cringe in sympathy.

One woman broke away from the group. "Special Agent Eppes?"

"That's me." Don stopped their conversation immediately. "The rest of my team: Special Agents Reeves and Sinclair. How is he?"

"Lucky," the woman said. "I'm Dr. Ruiz. He's one of your people, right? He's lucky to be alive. He'd lost most of his blood by the time we got to him, and it took another long while to patch up the hole in his shoulder." She shook her head in disbelief. "Reminds you that bullet proof vests aren't perfect. He's one very lucky man," she repeated.

"He's going to be okay, right?" That was more important to Don.

"He's young, he's healthy; yes, the chances are good. I'll be watching him overnight in ICU, then I'll move him onto the general floor for more IV antibiotics," Dr. Ruiz said. "Don't expect him back at work on Monday."

"When can we talk to him?"

"Not tonight, that's for certain." Dr. Ruiz automatically consulted her watch. "He's still out of it, still coming out of anesthesia. Maybe tomorrow morning. You all might as well go home. You won't get anything out of him until then."

Don disagreed. "Doc, hate to tell you this, but I'm assigning some protection to him. He may have seen a murder suspect, and keeping him safe is going to be of paramount importance. The bodyguard should get here any time. I'm hanging around until the bodyguard arrives."

Dr. Ruiz sighed. "Just keep your bodyguard out of the way of the ICU nurses. Trust me on this, Special Agent Eppes: nobody, but nobody, will get past those nurses."


	14. Brightest Crayon 14

Daylight seeped in past the blinds, and Charlie allowed it to gently wake him. The warmth of the sun felt good across his chest, and the shadow of the blinds prevented it from digging into his eyes. It felt good.

Memory crashed in on him: Charlie Eppes was not waking up in his own bed in his own home. He wasn't even waking up in a bed. It was a sofa, and a dusty one at that. Charlie sneezed, the sound echoing through the room. He hurried to cover his nose, hoping that the sound hadn't alerted anyone.

Charlie remembered everything that had happened with dismay: meeting with Nancy and her tall friend by Charlie's car. Remembered the friend—Darren, that was the man's name—remembered Darren with the cloth that he forced over Charlie's face, remembered sinking into oblivion.

He felt better now. That chemical, whatever it was, had worn off. Even the nausea that it had caused was gone, and Charlie was grateful. That had been the worst stench he had ever smelled, and that included the time when Larry had tried that sulfur compound as a battery alternative for one of his experiments.

Why had the pair kidnapped him? More to the point, if they'd kidnapped him, then why was he currently untied and left alone here on this sofa in this log cabin?

No—he wasn't actually alone. Charlie listened, and could hear two voices murmuring in the other room. He opened his eyes, verified that he was alone in this room—and acted.

He rose to his feet, taking a moment to make certain that the remnants of last night's chemical fragrance wouldn't affect him any further, and tiptoed to the front door. Still no response from the other room. Charlie silently took hold of the door knob, praying that the thing had been recently oiled.

It had, and so had the hinges. Charlie eased the door open and slipped out.

Better and better: there was Charlie's blue Prius, waiting for him. The only thing that would make this escape any easier, Charlie decided, was for Nancy and Darren to have left the keys in the ignition. Had they? Maybe, perhaps?

_Yes!_ There they were, dangling from the ignition, the fob with Amita's picture swinging gently beside the other keys on the chain. Charlie wrestled a victorious grin into submission. Score one for 'Mr. Math Professor'!

There would be noise as he started the engine, but that couldn't be helped. It wouldn't be much—the electrical motor was almost silent—but hopefully the sound would be covered over by the sounds of the forest that surrounded the cabin. Charlie opened the Prius door as quietly as he could, easing himself into the driver's seat and reaching for the keys. He turned the ignition.

Nothing.

Charlie froze. This couldn't be happening. He turned the key once more: still nothing.

A couple of shadows, one large and the other small, fell across the windshield.

"I think it's out of gas," Nancy said.

"We couldn't get it to work any more, either," Darren added.

Without power, the electronic dashboard wouldn't light up to verify what the pair had said, but Charlie had a sneaking suspicion that they were right. There was something very wrong about a hybrid vehicle running out of gas, he decided bitterly.

Options: run away. He was in good shape, Charlie knew, and could quite likely outrun both of his captors. But where to? How far away was the nearest center of civilization? He was just as likely to become lost in the woods and die of exposure. Not a good plan.

That left going back inside with Nancy and Darren. In the light of day the cabin to which he'd been brought looked astoundingly large and well-furnished, with several windows on each of the three stories. There might be a working phone inside, he consoled himself into thinking. He could call Don for help. In fact, he might even be able to discover more of what was going on. Nancy and Darren liked 'Mr. Math Professor', he reasoned. That could work in Charlie's favor.

"Okay," he told the pair. "I'm not going anywhere." He let his shoulders droop, to try to convince them that he was beaten.

It worked. Nancy beamed. "Can we go back inside now?" she asked. "I'm making toast with raspberry jam. Darren likes raspberry jam. Don't you, Darren?"

"I like raspberry jam," Darren replied promptly. "Do you like raspberry jam, Mr. Math Professor?"

Charlie sighed. "Love it," he lied.

* * *

Don had never seen Gatsbacher so pissed. Gatsbacher normally was a scary looking dude, usually wearing black leather tight pants that looked like they shouldn't leave anything to the imagination but did and a black turtleneck shirt that would look equally appropriate on either gender. Now, with painted black eyebrows beetled to a thick line across his/her/its forehead and a frown that promised retribution for past misdeeds, Gatsbacher was truly frightening. Don started to appreciate the weight of his gun on his hip before recalling that Gatsbacher was on his side.

"Tampering!" Gatsbacher hissed. The sound whistled through the Forensics Lab. "This camera was tampered with!"

Don sucked in his breath. "Are you sure?" he asked, then grimaced as Gatsbacher started to turn a look of fury on him. "Never mind. I withdraw the question."

"Of _course_ I'm sure," Gatsbacher snarled, ignoring Don's attempt to backtrack. "This is _FBI_ equipment, and someone tried to _kill _one of us. Of course I'm sure!"

_Oh_, yeah, Gatsbacher was pissed. Don wasn't certain whether the Forensics expert was more angry over misuse of FBI equipment or Colby's shooting, but in the long run it didn't matter. Gatsbacher was going to drag those pictures out of the camera no matter what.

"How is Colby?" Gatsbacher asked grimly.

"Alive," Don said. For the moment, it was enough.

Not for Gatsbacher. "You're going to _get_ those fiends who shot him!"

Don stared. This was a new side of Gatsbacher. Caring about Colby? Don wasn't aware that there was anything going on between the two. In fact, Don was pretty certain that _Colby_ wasn't aware that there was anything going on between the two. For the moment, Don almost considered doubling the protective guards on Colby before remembering once again that Gatsbacher was supposedly on their side.

He changed the subject. "Any leads on who tampered with the camera?"

Gatsbacher had the answer. "There were only two sets of fingerprints on the camera: Colby Granger, and DEA Agent Steve Lomb. The camera was working when Colby checked it out of Stores yesterday evening, so it had to have been done between then and when I got hold of it at ten ten last night."

Don nodded, thinking furiously. "Just to be certain, Gatsbacher; any chance that Colby himself could have done it accidentally when he dropped it?"

"No." On that, Gatsbacher was clear. "The lock was on and intact. Dropping it might—only _might!_—have erased the last digital capture but never the entire imprinting. No, _these_, Special Agent Eppes, had to have been deliberately erased. Someone removed the card from the camera, exposed it to a magnetic source of unknown origin, and then replaced it into the camera. And before you ask: no, they did not leave any fingerprints behind on the photo card. They knew exactly what they were doing, Special Agent Eppes." Gatsbacher's lips pursed in a prim moue.

"How could they have done it with so many trained agents around?" Don was having a hard time imagining such an occurrence.

"It wouldn't take long," Gatsbacher informed him. "For someone familiar with such devices, it would have taken perhaps seconds." The Forensics expert picked up the camera. "Observe. I have picked up the camera off of the ground where Colby let it fall. I slip the card out of the slot—" Gatsbacher demonstrated, sliding the small blue chip out of the camera—"and then I slip it into my pocket where I have placed a strong magnet. No one sees me do this. I do something else—perhaps call for back up, even look around 'frantically' for the sniper—and then I pick up the camera once again, replacing the card into the camera. No one would suspect that I have tampered with the evidence. They only see me taking charge of a valuable piece of equipment. In fact, doing it with gloves to prevent leaving fingerprints would also be in keeping with anyone at a forensics scene."

"So it could have been anyone there," Don mused, "even someone arriving after the shooting went down. There's no way to figure out who did it."

"That's right." It all but killed Gatsbacher to admit it. The Forensics expert glowered. "It could even have been done by me, here in my lab. Not that I _would_—" more glowering—"but I have to put it in as a possibility."

"How about the pictures themselves?" Don asked. "Any chance at retrieving them? You were able to get some good shots out of the DEA's cameras."

"I'm working on it," Gatsbacher informed him. He/she/it licked his/her/its lips. The tongue slid lasciviously over the teeth as Gatsbacher came up with another idea. "I don't suppose there's any chance of that lovely little man from CalSci coming to help?"

"Who, Larry Fleinhardt?" Don started to ask without thinking. He froze, and back-peddled. "Uh, I'll ask him. Probably not, though. Has a bunch of classes to teach. Projects to complete. Writing an article, I think." _Because Megan will kill me if I let her know what's really going through Gatsbacher's head!_


	15. Brightest Crayon 15

The toast was soggy and cold. Charlie forced himself to take another bite, knowing that Nancy was eager to please 'Mr. Math Professor.' "Very good," he lied, swallowing before the substance could impact his taste buds any further. "No, one slice is enough," he added hastily before Nancy could offer any more. He tried to change the subject. "Don't you think we ought to call someone, let them know where we are?" _Someone like my brother the FBI agent, perhaps?_

"Nope," Darren said somberly.

Charlie waited patiently for Darren to explain. He put down his half-eaten slice, and waited. And waited some more.

Both Darren and Nancy watched 'Mr. Math Professor', as if Charlie was going to magically come up with whatever was bothering them.

Not happening. Charlie drew on all of his teaching techniques, and plunged forward. "Tell me what's going on. Why did you bring me here?" _Keep it accusation-free, Charlie. Don't get angry with them. It will only upset them, and bad things will start to happen. Let's not forget that Darren is twice as big as you are._

Fortunately, it gave Nancy permission to talk. "Ben said that if anything ever happened to him, that we should come _here_ and talk to Mr. Math Professor. He said that Mr. Math Professor knows everything."

Darren bobbed his head up and down. "Yup. That's what Ben said. He said it to Nancy lots of times. So that's what we did."

"Did he ever say it to you?" Charlie asked.

That made Darren stop and think. "Yup. Once. He told me once. It was back at the house. It was Saturday morning. It was our turn to wash our clothes, with the washing machine and with the dryer. We washed our clothes together. Ben went first. He put his clothes into the washing machine first, before me. Then Ben said, 'I'm scared, Darren. When I'm scared, I go to the cabin and talk to Mr. Math Professor.' That's what he said," Darren affirmed.

"That's what he said," Nancy agreed.

"Okay," Charlie said slowly, "but there's a problem. I've never been here, to this cabin in the woods. Ben couldn't have spoken to me here. This is the first time I've ever been here."

They stared at him. They blinked. And waited for Charlie to speak some more. Charlie, with a sinking feeling, realized that understanding wasn't getting through. He tried again. "Nancy, Darren, Ben never talked to me. He never said anything to me, at any time. He didn't talk to me here. He didn't talk to me when he visited me in my classroom. Ben and I never had a conversation at any time. I didn't even know his name until…afterward." Charlie tacked the last word on uncomfortably, not certain how they would take it.

Nancy blinked, trying to pull back the tears. "That's not what Ben said. Ben said that he came here to talk to you. That's what he said. That's what he said," she repeated staunchly, as if by repeating herself she could make it true.

"I believe you," Charlie told her quickly, to forestall any more protests. "I believe that he told you that. But he must have meant something else, because I've never been to this cabin before in my life." He glanced around the Great Room, looking at the rough-hewn log walls, the moose head that stuck out over the large stone-rimmed fireplace. "How about if we look around, see if we can find out what Ben meant?" _How about if I can stall long enough to figure out a way to call for help?_

* * *

Peter Medson, part-time security guard at Lavozzi Industries, was scared stiff. He sat on the uncomfortable chair in Interrogation, his hands on the table and fidgeting, trying to keep himself under control and not being particularly successful. The tremor in those hands was unmistakable.

Don had the lead on the interrogation, with Megan beside him. "You work full time for Chiroz Construction, right?"

"That's—that's right." Even Medson's voice held a tremor. "He's—he's expecting me. I gotta call him, let him know—"

"All in good time, Mr. Medson." Don didn't expect this to take more than a few minutes. If it did, then it wouldn't be Medson calling his boss to let him know that he'd be late. Don himself would be calling Chiroz Construction to let them know that their employee would be a guest of the State for the next several days. "You also work at Lavozzi Industries, right?"

"Right." Medson swallowed hard. "I've been working there since last September."

"You like working there?"

"Me? Sure, I guess. It's a way to make a little extra cash, for the kids."

Yup, got a family. Megan allowed her manila file folder to open, letting Don see that Medson was married with two young kids. Just the type to need that little extra cash, he thought. Was he the type to try to get a whole _lot_ of extra cash by helping someone trying to hijack national secrets?

Medson looked up at Don. "Listen, is this about that kid who was found dead the other day? I swear, I didn't have nothin' to do with it."

"Yeah, it's about him." Don crossed around behind Medson, just to throw him off balance, make him crane around to look at Don. "Did you see him come in that night?"

"I don't know," Medson said. He saw the doubting expression on Don's face, and paled. "Look, I swear, I don't know! I've only been working there since September. I don't know a lot of them. Did he sign in on the book?"

"Yes." Megan pushed a copy of the page for that night in front of Medson. "Here's his signature. He walked in past you. He went through the metal detector, you looked at his ID badge, and he signed in. Are you going to tell me that you don't remember that?"

Medson was openly shaking by now. "If he signed in, then I saw him. It's what I always do; it's what they taught me to do. I walk 'em through the metal detector, and they hand me their ID card. I make sure that the card matches the face, and I pass them through."

Don tossed a blow up of Magenbrot onto the table in front of Medson, the kid's blond hair wispy around heavy features. It was a standard, clean shot, one that could be used at a funeral instead of one designed to shock potential suspects. "Recognize him?"

"No. Who is this?"

Don shoved the paper closer. "Are you telling me that you don't recognize this man?"

"No, I swear it! I've never seen this guy before in my life! You gotta believe me!" Medson was close to hysteria.

Don backed down. "Okay, I believe you. Calm down." He selected another head shot, this one of a blond man with a wide smile. The picture was grainy, as though downloaded from an internet screen and enlarged too many times. He slid it in front of Medson. "How about this guy?"

Medson peered at it. "Yes. Yes, I've seen him come in once or twice when I've been on duty." He looked up. "Is this Magenbrot? I only work part-time; I can't tell you who is who, for the most part."

Don subdued a grim smile. "You can go now, Mr. Medson. Don't leave town; we may have more questions for you."

"I can go?" Medson could barely believe his luck.

"You can go," Megan assured him. "We'll be in touch." She waited until the officer outside the Interrogation room escorted Medson out before turning to Don. "Good call, Don."

"Thanks." Don allowed the grim smile to come forth. He swiveled the second picture around so that it was facing him. The picture was one that Gatsbacher had successfully dragged out of Colby's camera. The quality of the print was poor, but it was sufficient for a preliminary identification. Don surveyed the hunched over figure in the photo. "Now, how would a part time security guard at Lavozzi Industries who only works an occasional night shift be able to recognize the CEO at Make A Better Day?"


	16. Brightest Crayon 16

Nancy took Charlie by the hand and drew him up the stairs. "This is the room that Ben always stayed in when we came here," she told him. "This is where Ben stayed."

_Further away from the door, too_, Charlie thought unhappily. _This is not the way to escape_. With Darren bringing up the rear, there was nothing for Charlie to do but play along. _Maybe they'll get tired of having me here, and they'll simply let me go. How do _they_ expect to return to civilization?_

There didn't seem to be any malice in the pair, no urge to harm 'Mr. Math Professor'. They simply wanted his help. Charlie had apparently, all unknowing, gained a reputation based solely on the late Ben Magenbrot's description, and had miraculously acquired the ability to figure out puzzles with little or no information to go on.

Great.

With no better option, Charlie went where they led him. _Who knows? Maybe there will be something here that will lead to an answer. After all, Magenbrot did come here occasionally_.

Nancy steered him to a small room tastefully done in plaid and pine. It was a corner room, boasting a window on each of the outer walls, with red tartan curtains and the same red pattern echoed on the bed coverings. A knotty pine dresser stood next to the closet. Charlie caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the dresser. _I could use a shave. I could use a shower, too_.

He carefully looked over the room, trying to remember what Don and the others did at a crime scene. They had techniques, he knew, wishing that he knew what those techniques were. They had training in how to look at things, so that things wouldn't get missed. Charlie sighed. In the absence of a better plan, he decided to start at one end and work his way around. The door would be a good place to start.

Nancy and Darren watched him like a pair of eager vultures, observing his every move as if he was about to suddenly find a secret cache in the very wood of the walls. Perhaps to their way of thinking, he would. Charlie slid his finger along the door frame, in case Magenbrot had left a key. Nothing: only a surfeit of dust. Spring cleaning was several months away.

The dresser was next. Charlie observed it carefully, noting the obvious symmetry of the cabinetry work and how the two sides of the dresser appeared to have been cut from the same tree. Each side had a similar knot in approximately the same place. The top of the dresser too had been carefully joined together to make it look as though the surface was one single plank. Charlie knew better; his father, at one time, had been interested in wood-working and had dragged Charlie out to the garage for some father-son bonding. Charlie, more intrigued by numbers and less than eager to spend time with a parent—parents are never cool until you hit thirty, at least—had resisted until his father had given up.

Could Magenbrot have hidden something inside? Charlie systematically pulled out each and every drawer, estimating the interior dimensions and correlating them with the external sizes in case there was a false bottom to one or more of the drawers.

Nothing. No false bottoms, no secret hideaways. Only a very impressive performance for two people who were convinced that Charlie held all the answers. He moved on the closet; next in line.

The closet was even easier to search: there was almost nothing there. Magenbrot hadn't hung anything on the hangars dangling at the top, and a quick peek into the worn out and muddy shoes told him that Magenbrot hadn't hid a small piece of paper there.

"Those are my shoes," Darren told him, after Charlie finished examining them.

"Thanks," Charlie replied, keeping the sarcasm as minimal as possible. _You couldn't have told me that before I got my hands dirty and my nose full of stink?_ He finished searching the empty closet, even standing on a chair so that he could peer onto the surface of the shelf three inches taller than his head. "There's nothing there." He crawled down from the chair to face the two. "I'm sorry; I'm not finding…"

His voice trailed off as he looked at the bed. It was a single bed, the frame the same knotty pine that the dresser had been carved from. It was plain, yet finely finished, the red tartan covering all. There was only one pillow; more would have overwhelmed the room. This was a room meant for eight hours of sleep and a quick change, nothing more.

Charlie saw Reuben Magenbrot in his mind's eye, the man creeping into Charlie's classroom a moment or two after Charlie began to speak and always slipping away when Charlie asked the final, "any questions?" Charlie saw a man so desperate to learn that he would expose himself to a field of endeavor considered one of the most difficult in the history of man, yet so fearful of his reception that he would never dare speak to the professor teaching the class. There was both boy and man in Reuben Magenbrot, the shy boy dragging the bolder man out before Charlie could stop him.

Reuben Magenbrot was not intelligent, not in the classical sense of the word. Everything that Charlie knew about him verified that fact. Yet there was something about the man, something in his attitude, the way he sat and scribbled into his notebook…

"Help me." Charlie darted to the bed, pulled back the coverings. He hadn't a clue as to why he was doing this. He only knew that he was right. That Reuben Magenbrot, the man with no formal education, had left this information behind so that his idol, 'Mr. Math Professor', would be able to find it.

It was two, no three weeks ago. Charlie had assigned some problems dealing with the dispersion of force over a variety of surfaces, and one of those surfaces had been a mattress. He hadn't noticed it then, but now, thinking back, there had been a flash of light that had illuminated Magenbrot's face. Charlie hadn't paid much attention. A light bulb flash was commonplace in Charlie's world. He had them daily. His students also had them, usually several times per lecture, and if they didn't they tended to drop out of his classes to pursue a less demanding major.

Reuben Magenbrot had had one of those 'light bulb moments'. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of his mind, something had clicked.

Charlie knew what it was, and it had nothing to do with force dispersion.

"Help me," he demanded. "Darren, help me pick up this mattress. I'll get this end. Nancy, you look under there and see if you can see—"

"It's there!" she squealed. "It's there! It's there!" She darted in and snatched up the sheets of paper that had been hidden between the mattress and the box spring. "You found it, Mr. Math Professor! You found it!"

Charlie helped Darren ease the mattress back over the box spring. "Let me see it."

"Ben wrote on it," Nancy informed him. "He left us a clue."

"Maybe." There were a dozen things wrong with that statement, starting with the fact that Charlie didn't know for certain that Magenbrot had written the thing and ending with not knowing for certain that it was Magenbrot who had put it there. _And here we are, getting fingerprints all over it. Don is gonna kill me…_ He took the papers from Nancy's hand.

They were eight and one-half by eleven, with wide-ruled lines, perfect for the awkwardly large letters written in purple crayon.

"Ben liked purple," Nancy observed, looking at the paper in Charlie's hands.

It wasn't easy to decipher the letters and turn them into words. _I've finally found someone whose spelling is even poorer than mine_, Charlie decided. He puzzled it out.

_I saw Mr. Gdeon. He din't lik it that I saw him. I saw him at wrk. He gave the other man a comptr disk. _(Charlie had to work to figure that one out.)_ Mr. Gdeon told me to go bak to wrk and fergit I evr saw him ther. Maybe i beter ask_

There was nothing further written on that paper, although there was another paper underneath it. Magenbrot had been interrupted, leaving the final sentence unfinished. Who was he going to ask? What was it that he planned to question? Charlie looked at the second paper—and froze.

_This is _so_ not good_.

The second paper contained something that Charlie recognized. It had been six months since he'd seen it, but Charlie still could recognize the chemical formula that the military had purchased from Lavozzi Industries. Reuben Magenbrot had in his possession a copy of something so highly classified that people on two continents were already screeching about the theft.

Charlie turned to the other two.

"This is important," he told them gravely. "We have to get this to my brother Don right away. He'll know what to do with it."

Nancy looked at Darren. Darren looked at Nancy.

"Okay," Nancy said.

_That's it? Okay?_ Charlie coughed. "You aren't going to try to keep me here?"

Both Nancy and Darren looked puzzled.

"Mr. Math Professor," Nancy asked, "why would we do that?"

* * *

When Don held a ten o'clock meeting, he would occasionally run out to the donut shop on the corner for a large box of high end coffee along with some bagels and cream cheese. When the meeting promised to be long and/or difficult, it would perk his people up and give them that little extra boost they needed to enhance the power of those little gray cells chugging along inside their brains.

This was not one of those meetings, and Don had no intention of shelling out for the three DEA agents who had expanded his team. Under the circumstances the mud that passed for a caffeine pick-me-up from the commissary would be good enough, and if anyone wanted something to nibble on they could get it themselves.

"Catch up time," Don informed them, as Megan and David seated themselves on one end of the table and the three DEA agents along the other side. Don chose not to frown: the sides were lining up and the cooperation diminishing. The temporary truce was fading. Don wasn't surprised. He pushed ahead; he didn't need any 'truce' for this part of the case. "It feels like we're closing in on the murderer." He dumped a photocopy of both signature books from Lavozzi Industries, one from each of the front and back entrances. "You can see that we have Reuben Magenbrot signing in twice on the night that he was killed. Anybody got any ideas as to why he would do that?"

Bausch snatched at the two papers and compared the signatures, Gratofsky and Lomb leaning over to look for themselves. "These aren't the same handwriting, Eppes."

"Score one for Agent Bausch," Don complimented him. "Absolutely right."

"That says that we had an intruder running through Lavozzi Industries." Gratofsky jumped onto the bandwagon. "Somebody was posing as Magenbrot, looking to get inside. How often did that happen? What nights? How far back do the signature books go, Eppes? Can we track this? Where the hell was their Security, while all of this was going on?" He reached for the papers in Bausch's hands. "Where are the books, Eppes? They're evidence."

"They're safe, in Evidence," Don told him, "under lock and key. We'll need them for the trial. They're not going anywhere."

"How about the tracking, Eppes?" Gratofsky pushed. "Anybody do that? We've been looking at Lavozzi Industries for the last two months, but there had to have been something going on before that. We can compare the previous books going back, say six months, see how many times we've got the same person signing in twice on the same day. Was it only Magenbrot, or were there any others?"

"Good thought," Don approved. "You want it, Agent Gratofsky?"

"Damn right I do."

"All yours, then. David, go with him. Head down to Evidence, tell Baxter that I said that it was okay. Touch base with Connie Polonovich while you're there; she's our handwriting expert. Maybe we'll get lucky, and she'll be able to identify a possible from the signatures."

"Got it. Third floor, right?" Gratofsky was gone, David hustling to keep up.

Megan piped up. "Don, I heard from the hospital. Colby's awake. He's still pretty groggy, but awake. You want me to take his statement?"

"Good idea," Don told her. "See if he can give you any more details than just 'blond and one hundred fifty pounds'. That description could fit almost anyone." He pushed forward a brief smile. "Hell, it could even fit Agent Lomb, here."

"Yeah," Lomb nodded. "Good thing I was next to Granger, or you'd be looking at me as a suspect." He turned to Megan. "All right if I tag along? I feel kind of responsible for what went down."

"You don't have to," Megan protested. "There was no way that you could have known that there would be a sniper there."

"Yeah, but still…" Lomb let the sentence trail off.

"You're on it." Don waved his hand magnanimously. "While you're there, Megan, make sure that Colby has whatever he needs. Including some strong protection," he added seriously. "Right now, he's a witness. He's the only one who actually saw the guy making the buy from the Zoo Bangers. Make sure that no one can get to him."

"Will do, Don." Megan pulled herself out of the meeting, Agent Lomb in her wake.

That left Agent Bausch with Don. Bausch tilted his head. "I guess that gets the Better Day folks out of this," he admitted ruefully. "I was certain that they had a hand in it. If there was someone else running around the place, pretending to be Magenbrot, then it wasn't any of them. You got any more leads, Eppes? That pick up on the two signatures was a good piece of detective work," he said, offering up the proverbial olive branch.

"Thanks." Don accepted the praise. "No, I figure that there's some more running down on those signatures to be done. I checked with Dr. LaVozzi, the CEO of Lavozzi Industries; he let me know that the back entrance, where the second signatures were, is usually manned by part-timers. We're going to have to bring those part-timers in, one by one, see if we can come up with a composite picture of our suspect." He sighed. "It's going to be a long, tedious job. We won't know which one of those guys actually saw our suspect. LaVozzi seemed to think that he had at least half a dozen security guards that might have seen the guy." Don snorted. "Actually, he's got ten of 'em. We're going to have to look up each and every one of 'em."

Bausch fastened on another piece. "You actually talked to LaVozzi? He wouldn't give us the time of day."

"Yeah, well, it helps to have friends, and brothers, in high places." Don shrugged. "I got Charlie to make a couple of calls, to the Pentagon, places like that," he lied—_wouldn't hurt to let this DEA ass know just how big a target he was hassling—_ "and LaVozzi rolled over like a puppy dog, begging to get his belly scratched. These military contractors," and Don shook his head ruefully, playing it up big. "Always sucking up to some government department or another."

Another thought occurred to Bausch. "Where is he? Dr. Eppes, I mean? Isn't he part of your team?"

"Just a consultant," Don said easily. "Charlie's got a day job, teaching at CalSci. We call him in when math will help solve a case, but that's not what we need here. I'll call him later, let him know how everything's going, just because his name came up earlier in the case. Before we knew what was going on." _Dig, dig, Bausch. You pushed at my guy, now I'm pushing back. You don't have a clue what I'm planning, do you?_ In fact, Don had already called Charlie, leaving a message on his brother's cell, letting him know to avoid all of the DEA agents until Don finished clearing things up. Don had plans, and adding Charlie to the mix wasn't going to be in his brother's best interests.

Not that Don had any real worries on that part. He'd also called the house and gotten their father who'd told him that Charlie hadn't come home last night. Not an unusual occurrence; freed from the concern of Don's current case, Charlie had likely plunged into whatever neglected research was sitting on his desk and spent the night, headphones blasting, concocting whole white boards of little Greek letters marching along in incomprehensible sentences.

Don sighed, trying not to over-act. "Ten security guards, all with full time jobs elsewhere." He pushed over a copy of the list of names that he'd gotten from Tony LaVozzi. "Gotta get done. I figure we can just talk to these guys at their jobs; we don't have to bring them in unless they start squealing. That work for you?"

"Can do." Bausch eyed the list as though it was a rattlesnake looking for its next victim. "How about we split this list, Eppes? Like you said, these are not who we're after. We can see which ones remember the fake Magenbrot coming through, and pull them in for a composite sketch. That way we don't have to hassle all ten of them."

"Sounds good," Don approved. "You want the top half, or the bottom?"

"Does it matter? Gimme the top five." Bausch jotted down the names and the contact information, mentally running the destinations through the map in his mind. "I should be back by two."

"See you then," Don told him, pocketing the other half of the list and watching Bausch hustle down the hall toward the elevator. Now he did allow a grim smile to cross his face. There was a reason that Don had not shared with the DEA boys the fact that one of LaVozzi's security people had already identified the CEO of Make A Better Day coming to check on how his workers were doing the evening of Reuben Magenbrot's demise. There was a reason that Don had not shared that Bartholomew Gideon had signed into Lavozzi Industries under Reuben Magenbrot's name.

Something was about to happen. Don had set the bait, and it was a matter of waiting to see who showed up to grab it.


	17. Brightest Crayon 17

"Hey, Megan. Lomb." The hand that Colby put up for a wave didn't make it very far, but Megan was still glad to see the attempt.

"Hey, Colby. Looking good," she half-lied. Good? Not with a face whiter than Casper the Friendly Ghost. Not with a couple of plastic tubes dripping fluid into each arm, and another delivering high quality oxygen to his nose. Not with a heavy white dressing wrapped around his shoulder, a darker shadow in the center indicating where blood had leaked out rather than stay decently inside the man where it belonged.

On the other hand, it could have been worse. This could have been the coroner's office, with Megan here to get a copy of the medical examiner's final report of exactly how the single bullet had severed an artery and caused the FBI to lose a damn fine agent.

No, this was far better, even though the two FBI agents providing protection outside the room were creating havoc with the over-drawn budget. _Let them_, Megan thought to herself. Colby was important.

"Hey, Megan. Lomb." Colby tried to lift his head up off of the pillow, and gave it up as a bad job. "You get the guy? Mutt and Jeff outside say no."

"Not yet, Colby," Megan told him. "Listen, you gave Don a partial ID last night of the guy making the buy; we were hoping that you could give us something more. You up for this?"

"Hell, yes," Colby lied. Then he frowned. "Was Don there last night? I don't remember."

"He was there," Megan said. "Let's just say the sniper was lucky that he escaped. I don't know what Don would have done if we'd caught him. How are you feeling?"

"Let's just say that I'm appreciating the effects of this stuff called morphine." Colby yawned, trying to keep his eyes open. "Right now, you could ask me for my computer password, and I'd give you the location to my safety deposit box." He moved on to more important things. "What are you saying, you need more? More what? I got a bunch of good shots with the night sights; that should be enough for the ID of our buyer. What's with the camera?"

Megan gave him the bad news. "The pictures didn't come out, Colby."

"What do you mean, didn't come out? I got great shots! I got close ups so clear you could count the pores on the guy's nose, Megan!" Only exhaustion prevented Colby from leaping out of the bed to go after the errant camera to prove what he'd said.

"Are you sure, guy?" Lomb put in.

"Yes, I'm sure! I took like fifty shots, Megan!" The little green beeping over Colby's head sped up, showing a steady increase in response to his agitation.

"It's okay, Colby. We've got Gatsbacher working on it," she soothed.

"Crap. I'm in for it now," Colby moaned.

"Well, yes, you are," Megan agreed wryly. "Gatsbacher isn't likely to give up on a mere piece of electronic equipment, even if we crack the case without your pictures. What can you tell me about what went down, Colby?"

Colby tried. He eyed Lomb suspiciously, remembering the doubts that he'd had about the man and his behavior, wondering how frank he should be with the DEA agent present. He sighed. Megan would pull him out of whatever trouble he got into, of that he was certain. She wouldn't have brought the DEA dude with her if Colby couldn't speak freely. "I set up the sting, just like we'd planned. It was me and Lomb here, and three other guys. I planted 'em around the site, one by the parking lot closest to the drop site to give us the head's up when our target arrived."

"Corroborates what everyone else said," Megan encouraged him.

Colby started to nod, and thought better of it when his shoulder objected. "I had LeClerq at Station Two, on lookout for the parking lot. He radioed in, said we had a possible. Black sedan, I think he said. Wanted to get the plates which were blacked out. I told him to hang tight. Didn't want to scare the guy. Wanted to get a good picture of the dude." Colby stretched his eyelids open, failed to keep them there. "You sure those pictures didn't come out, Megan? I could have sworn…"

"Colby?" Megan touched him gently.

The groan that slipped out was unauthorized. Colby was clearly drifting away. "I dropped the damn thing, didn't I, Megan? Dropped it, and erased all of 'em. All that work, and I screwed… up…"

Megan leaned over to pat his good hand. "It's all right, Colby. You didn't screw up. We're going to get this guy."

"Wasted," Lomb said, and Megan wasn't sure if the DEA agent was referring to the effort or to Colby's state of being with hospital narcotics. He waited until Megan and he were out of Colby's room and out of earshot before broaching his concern. "What if Granger doesn't remember what the perp looked like? I only saw him from a distance, and that was at night. I don't have an ID that will stand up in court, Reeves." He sighed. "Wish that I'd caught that camera when Granger dropped it. We might have been able to save those pictures, and we'd now have a suspect. Any chance your forensics guy can pull one out of the hat?"

Megan shrugged. "Heaven only knows. Gatsbacher is good, but if there's nothing on the card to pull off?" She let the sentence die away in discouragement.

Lomb sighed. "Glad you've got protection on Granger. He may end up being our best lead."

Megan continued walking down the hospital corridor. She pushed the button to summon the elevator. "You don't think that Don's lead on the duplicate signatures is going to go anywhere?"

Lomb snorted. "Get real. Ten people, they get a quick look for less than thirty seconds at somebody, and you expect them to put together a composite? Buy a lottery ticket, Reeves; you'll have better luck."

* * *

Charlie tried to put his predicament in terms of a series of postulates. One: he was in an unknown location. Two: his car, his hybrid pride and joy, was out of every type of energy that it could use, a useless piece of wiring and plastic that would remain useless until someone refueled it. And three: he really needed to get this information to Don, that the late Reuben Magenbrot had discovered Bartholomew Gideon skulking around at Lavozzi Industries and that Reuben was in possession of a top secret and highly classified chemical formula. If that wasn't a clue, then Charlie didn't know what was. Corollary to three: Charlie had no form of communication. He was really hoping that he'd left his cell in his office at CalSci; it wouldn't be the first time that it had happened and it likely wouldn't be the last. Charlie even had a spare cell from one time when he'd lost the thing amongst the research that he was doing on a project for Larry, and had gone out and purchased a new one thinking that he'd lost it for good. That spare was sitting in the top drawer in his dresser at home. Neither cell was doing Charlie any good from their current locations.

_So far, so good. We've set the parameters to the problem. Let's see what we can do for data collection._ He turned to Nancy and Darren. "Where are we?"

A simple and straightforward question, to which Darren gave a simple and straightforward answer: "In the cabin." Darren accompanied it with a look at Charlie which suggested that 'Mr. Math Professor' was off his rocker.

Charlie mentally calmed himself. This would take time. "Right. In the cabin. What's the address of the cabin?" That should be a good starting point.

It wasn't. Darren looked at Nancy. Nancy looked at Darren. They both shrugged. "I don't know."

_Okay, I can cope_. "How did we get here?" he asked.

"In the car."

_Don't grind your teeth; it will only make your dentist unhappy_. "Who drove?"

"Darren did," Nancy said proudly. "Darren did a real good job."

Charlie froze. "Do you have a driver's license?" he asked Darren, swearing that he wouldn't get angry, no matter what.

"Nope. There wasn't time to get one. I figured that I could do it. I watch Mr. Gideon and Ms. Meredith do it all the time. It didn't look that hard. I was right," he added proudly.

Charlie resolved to closely examine his car, inside and out, to look for any and all dents. Prior to this slice of life, the Prius had been in pristine condition.

On to an item of higher priority: "Do you know how to get back?" Charlie asked.

Darren looked around uneasily. "I guess so," he muttered.

Wonderful. It had to be sheer luck that they'd arrived here safely, and the odds of that happening a second time? Even Charlie didn't want to try that computation.

Back to his postulates. One: position still unknown, although in a pinch Charlie decided that he would quiz Darren as much as possible and then strike out on his own, following the roads until he arrived at something resembling civilization. It was summer, and the chances of freezing to death, even in the mountains, was slim. He was more likely to stumble across a bear, Charlie thought grimly.

Two: his car was still out of fuel. Unless he could remedy that lack, it was so much junk. Next up on the agenda: searching the premises for a can of gas. It was worth a shot. He turned to the other two. "Do you know if anyone keeps a can of gas anywhere? In a shed, or something like that?"

The pair exchanged yet another set of glances. "Nope."

"Let's look." Charlie led the way out of the cabin, casting a forlorn look at his Prius sitting in the dusty patch under the trees, collecting bird droppings from the sparrows and finches annoyed at sharing their forest with something not only earthbound but motionless as well.

The task ate up almost three-quarters of an hour before Charlie admitted defeat. Hiking was looking like more and more of a possibility, and Charlie wasn't looking forward to it. He still needed to get the information about Gideon to Don: postulate three.

"There isn't a phone in the house, is there?" he asked glumly. Try as he might, Charlie couldn't recall seeing one.

Nancy brightened. "Yes, there is!" she exclaimed. "In the kitchen! Next to the toaster!" she told him. "There's a phone!"

Charlie perked his head up. He hustled them back into the cabin—although, with three stories, 'cabin' didn't seem to be the correct terminology—and made a beeline for the kitchen.

There. There it was: a phone. Beige, the keypad hidden underneath the handset, but a phone. Charlie could have kissed it. Salvation was at hand. Why hadn't he thought to look for a phone earlier? Didn't matter; he could use it now. He picked up the receiver and put it to his ear.

Silence.

No dial tone.

Charlie shook it, and listened again. Still no annoying and highly desirable buzzing noise.

He turned to the pair. "It's not working."

Darren stared at him blankly. "Why not?"

_If I grind my teeth, it will only cost more in dentist bills_. _I already pay her enough_. Instead, Charlie offered up a sigh. "Either the line is down or, more likely, someone had the phone turned off. So many people have their own cell phones that it's not worth the expense to keep a landline."

What to do, what to do? Logic train: postulates one, two, and three and the reality that Charlie found around him were mutually exclusive. Translation: no way out.

Except walking.

Charlie looked at his shoes. No holes in them. Yet.

* * *

The Suburban wasn't the smallest of vehicles, but it was black and it didn't stand out in car-crazy Los Angeles where every licensed driver owned 2.3 vehicles of one sort or another. If it had been bright red with orange flames painted along the sides then it would have been noticed. Here, mid-morning in the summer, it simply looked like Mom was carting the entire soccer team to the neighborhood pool to cool off after practice.

It wasn't. It was black, and the side windows were tinted so that Don could see out and it was difficult for the casual bystander to see in, which suited Don just fine. He laid the binoculars down on the console beside him and picked up his rapidly cooling coffee in order to take another sip before it turned into cold mud. Right now it still tasted damn good, and he was determined to enjoy it as thoroughly as possible.

He idly considered the kid trying to make himself look both bored and efficient on the passenger's seat: a trainee, still wet behind the ears, barely out of Quantico. With Colby down, Don had needed a partner for this stake out, and he had grabbed a trainee out of the pool. It was a way for Agent Trainee Rodney D'Armante ("_please_ don't call me Rodney. Rod will do just fine.") to learn the fine art of drinking coffee and watching the streets, and it would keep Don from bending the rules forbidding solo practice by dragging some back up along. Bendage and breakage of regs was all fine, but not if he didn't have to. Don expected this particular excursion to be low risk; a perfect outing for the combination of good muscles and low experience sitting beside him. The kid, seeing out of the corner of his eye how Don was nursing his still hot coffee, endeavored to do the same with his own cup of caffeine.

Don glanced at the clock on the dash: almost eleven. By now, Bausch should have gotten through checking out two, maybe three of Lavozzi's part time security guards, seeing if those folks had more than a snowball's chance in hell of helping put together a composite. Don himself had suborned another one of the FBI trainee's to do his half of the list, while he camped out in the Suburban, hoping that something more significant would happen.

Speaking of significance, he still hadn't heard from Charlie. There was no reason to hear from his brother, but Don thought it somewhat odd. Charlie, after all, had been a prime suspect until Eppes senior had come up with that parking stub, and Charlie's name was figuring quite prominently over at Lavozzi Industries. Don would have thought that Charlie would at least invest some time in a return phone call to his brother, just to check on progress. Don flipped open his cell, the trainee beside him watching his every move; nope, nothing popping up in the window to say that someone had left a message. Not even a call from either Megan or David, not that he expected any from them. The pair had their part of the plan, and it didn't include a call to Don Eppes unless something really astounding went down. Don slid the cell back into his pocket.

Uh oh. Cold coffee alert. Target sighted. Don, sighing, slid the coffee cup into the holder in the console beside him and picked up his binoculars.

"That's him?" D'Armante's voice didn't squeak, but it was a near thing.

"That's him." Don handed over the binoculars. "Blond guy, brief case, brown suit, just passing that flock of pigeons."

"Got 'im," D'Armante reported ever so efficiently.

Don took another sip of still hot coffee, and let Agent Trainee D'Armante follow the suspect with the field glasses. Don performed the same action with a pair of perfectly adequate eyes.

Don had parked the Suburban in a slightly too tight parking slot toward the end of the block, having a flashback to his father teaching him to parallel park and blessing the man for his expertise. The Suburban was big, but Don had managed to wedge it into a place where he and Agent Trainee D'Armante could see the front of Make A Better Day and everyone who went in and out of the building.

There he was: Bartholomew Gideon, striding out of the building, glancing around him and heading down the street. Don tucked the coffee cup into its holder and turned the ignition, hearing the engine purr underneath the hood. He pulled out into traffic, slowly following the CEO, double parking once so as not to get ahead of the pedestrian target.

"Won't you get noticed, double parking?"

"In L.A.? Naw. Not if we don't stay here long. And we won't; look, he's already moving forward."

Gideon didn't walk far, only to the set of park benches three blocks away. He sat himself down on one of those benches, declining to feed the pigeons that clustered around him hopefully, waiting.

Waiting for whom? Don wondered, feeling the excitement build inside. This was going to be it, he _knew_ it. He slid the Suburban into another spot, not as good for watching as the previous one had been but still adequate. "Keep your eyes on Gideon," he directed the trainee. "I don't want to lose him."

"Yes, sir." The field glasses never wavered.

Thus reassured, Don scanned the surrounding area, looking for anyone who might be looking for Gideon, because the chances of the man leaving his office in the middle of the day simply to take a breath of fresh air wavered between slim and none. There was something going down; Don knew it as surely as he knew his name.

Gideon purchased a newspaper from the vendor, something to hide behind as he waited. The CEO opened it up, shook out the creases, and adjusted his legs to enclose his briefcase on the ground.

"He's watching for someone," Agent Trainee D'Armante mentioned. "Look at how he lets the newspaper drop so that he can see over it."

_Teach your grandmother how to bake cookies_. Don suppressed both a grin at Rodney's eagerness and annoyance at the idle chatter. "Just keep watch," he grunted, lifting his coffee cup. Good; still hot enough to drink. Don took a large gulp, knowing that it was going to be a race between finishing the drink and the arrival of Gideon's appointment.

Don won. He set the nearly empty cup back into the holder, ignoring the bitter dregs, just as a man of moderate height walked up to the bench that Gideon was sitting on and sat down on the other end of the bench. Don picked up the camera that he'd signed out of Equipment and fiddled with it, turning the power on and checking the telephoto lens.

"They're talking," Agent Trainee D'Armante reported.

"What are they saying?" _You aced your lip reading course at Quantico, right?_

"I can't tell. Suspect A is hiding behind his newspaper, and Suspect B keeps turning his head."

_What a surprise_. Don lifted the camera to his eyes, directing the lens to dolly in on the new arrival. He snapped off a couple of quick shots of the man, one full body and the other as close a close-up of the face that he could persuade the lens to get.

The man was of medium stature, blond hair—_got a surfeit of blonds on this case_—and neatly dressed in a pair of khakis and polo shirt. Crisp clean features included piercing icy blue eyes that darted around the landscape, searching automatically for people such as Don.

Don stiffened. "Put the glasses down," he hissed, shoving the camera below the sight line of the dashboard.

"Agent Eppes—?"

"Down, I said!" Don pulled the glasses down from Agent Trainee D'Armante's face. "Slump back against the seat, like you're taking a nap. Now!"

"Yes, sir." Rod went limp against the seat. "Can I look at him, sir?"

"Yes, keep your eyes open." Don tried not to be exasperated. "They won't see you looking at them through the tinted glass." _Why do you think I had it done? It cost an arm and a leg!_ "Do you know who that is?"

"Uh…no, sir?"

_Don't you pay attention to morning briefings, D'Armante? Apparently not_. "That, Rod, is Vasily Krikov."

_That_ name hit home. "Shit," Agent Trainee D'Armante breathed. "For real?"

"For real," Don confirmed grimly. This whole excursion had suddenly become a lot more serious. He swiftly reviewed what he wanted to do.

The simple fact that Gideon was here, meeting with someone well-connected with the flow of illegal information and illegal weaponry into undeserving hands around the world, suggested that Tony LaVozzi's concern of industrial and military espionage was more than just a concern. It suggested that it was a reality. It also suggested that someone, somehow, had tipped CEO Bartholomew Gideon that someone in the FBI was on to him. Gideon was making plans to get his money and run.

Which was what Don had been hoping wouldn't happen, because it meant that someone was dirty. It meant that someone, hearing all the evidence that would—sooner or later—point the FBI in Gideon's direction, realized that the FBI was closing in and that it was time to take an unearned hike. There were only six people who knew that: Don and his team, and the three DEA agents.

Don knew his team, which meant that it didn't look good for the DEA agents.

Don had definitely paid attention to the various memos crossing his desk, including the one discussing one Vasily Krikov. The only reason that the man hadn't made it to the 'Ten Most Wanted' list was that there were so many other deserving terrorists who had edged him out. Krikov did, however, figure prominently on Interpol's radar, as well as that of the CIA and the intelligence agencies of at least a dozen different nations. Nabbing this particular piece of slime would be a feather in the cap of one Special Agent Don Eppes. Receiving that award in a non-posthumous fashion would be even more appealing. Krikov was well known for shooting first, last, and several times in between.

This was not a situation where he wanted a first year trainee. Don wanted back up he could trust. Don wanted back up that wasn't likely to get someone killed.

"Watch them," Don ordered, pulling out his cell. He pushed the speed dial. "Megan? Don. Are you alone? Okay, just give me yes/no answers. Under no circumstances is Lomb to know what we're talking about. First of all, has Lomb been out of your presence at all? Any possibility that he could have made a phone call? Yes? _Shit_," Don growled. "Listen, don't react to this: Bartholomew Gideon just met up with Vasily Krikov. Yeah, that's right, good ol' Vasily himself. It looks like they may have exchanged something, probably not money. I only got D'Armante with me, and I need back up. More back up, I mean," he hastily put in, trying not to hurt the feelings of the trainee sitting next to him. "Dump Lomb—I don't care how at this point. It's all going down whether or not he's dirty or whether it's one of the others—and get over here now." He terminated the call and glanced at Gideon and Krikov, still sitting carefully away from each other on the bench. "You make out anything they're saying yet, Rod?"

"No, sir."

_Of course not. Why would I ever think that?_ "Keep watching," Don instructed, and put in a similar panic call to David.

No time. No sooner had Don hung up with David when Krikov rose from the bench. He stretched and looked at his watch, as if regretting that some non-existent break was over and it was time to get back to work. Gideon continued to hide behind his newspaper.

No time. Two suspects, and two FBI agents. Don made a rapid fire decision: Gideon was the suspect less likely to get an FBI agent killed. "Get out and stick close to Gideon," Don told D'Armante. "Do not move in on him. Do you hear me? Do _not_ move in. Your assignment is to follow him, make sure that he goes back to his office, and call it in. If he goes anywhere else, follow him and do _not_ get caught. I would rather that you lose the suspect than let him know that you're following him. Do you understand me, Agent D'Armante?"

"Yes, sir." In over his head and well aware of it. Things had taken an unexpected turn.

The kid would have to learn some time, and no time like the present. Hopefully he'd stay safe until the big boys came to bail him out. "Good. Get out, make like you're doing a coffee run or something. Keep under the radar." Don snatched the field glasses back before D'Armante slid out of the cab. "You won't need these. Once you find out where Gideon ends up, report back to headquarters." _Where you'll be safe_.

"Yes, sir." D'Armante thunked the door closed, and ambled nonchalantly across the street, looking as innocent as possible with his beardless young face.

One problem dealt with. Don triggered the ignition, pulling the Suburban back out into traffic, following his new suspect. He'd arrest him on the spot if he had to, but he didn't want to. Krikov would be on his way to pick up the stolen formula—heaven help the FBI, he was sounding like a James Bond flick on a bad day—and Don really wanted to recover the information before it made its way into undeserving hands.

This was a situation that he didn't want to find himself in: trailing a suspect known for his thorough way of dealing with potential problems, with no back up. Don had no doubt that somewhere on Krikov's person was a handgun accompanied by a knife or two. If Krikov caught sight of Don, the black market dealer would do his best to make sure that Don never had the opportunity to tail anyone ever again and Don wasn't suggesting a mere broken leg.

_Time to live up to those awards you've gotten, Eppes_. He watched Krikov walk off and get into a large SUV, noting the license plate. He called it in, finding out that it was a rental. _What a surprise_. Krikov didn't live in this part of the world, probably wasn't even in this country legally. When he finally arrested him, Don decided, he'd look for a falsified passport. There was a good chance that the man had more than one, just in case, sitting underneath a false bottom in his carry-on baggage.

Where were Reeves and Sinclair? To do a tail right, there needed to be more than one trailing vehicle, and if there was ever a time that they needed to do it right it was this time. Taking down Krikov would be a boost to the intelligence agencies of over a dozen different countries.

"Still five minutes away, Don," Megan told him across the airwaves. "Hey! Genius in the Lexus! Stop for red lights, why don't you!"

"Think they own the roads," Don grumbled. "Krikov's north on La Cienega, crossing Wilshire. Crap, he better not be expecting to take Laurel Canyon. In this monster truck, I'll stand out like a sore thumb. He'll lose me faster than a needle in a haystack. Megan, you think you can get a chopper up?"

"I can try," Megan said doubtfully into her own cell. "Last I heard, they both were down for maintenance. I'll get back to you."

Don switched over to David. "Turning onto Santa Monica. Take your time, David; traffic is slow and Krikov isn't pushing any lights. He's staying nice and polite, going with the flow."

"That's good, Don, because my traffic is doing the same. I'm boxed in. SUV, you said?"

"That's right." Don read off the plates. "Rental. Blue. Doesn't look like there's anyone else in there besides Vasily. I could walk faster than this traffic," he complained.

"You're the one who transferred into L.A., Don. If you wanted to move faster through town, you should have stayed in New Mexico."

"You're annoying. You know that, Sinclair?"

"Yes, Don. I am."

"I should fire your ass."

"But then you'd have to fire the rest of me, and you can't function without my brains," David replied complacently. "You still on Santa Monica?"

"Yeah. He's edging over to the left."

"Gonna make a left hand turn?"

"Probably. Nope, not onto Highland. Maybe onto Western, you think?"

"Gotta be going somewhere, Don."

"Unless he's just running us in circles."

"Where's Megan?"

"Hah. She's calling through. I'm putting you on hold, David. Megan?" Don switched over the calls.

"Don, both choppers are down for repairs. I got hold of LAPD; they're not available quite yet—LAPD's looking for a kid in the hills—but as soon as they find the kid they'll send a chopper our way. I told them okay. You're not moving fast, are you?"

"Not yet," Don grunted.

"Not surprised. It's almost lunch time. Shall I stop and pick up something?" she teased. "The way traffic is moving, I can catch up to you, hand over a sandwich, and still get back to my car in time to take over the chase."

"Ha, ha, Reeves. Left onto Western. He's heading toward Griffith Park. You think he's going there or heading up toward Burbank?" Don asked idly.

"How about we chase him and find out?"

Don let the chatter die down, concentrating on the target. Krikov continued to amble along, inching forward with the rest of the several million cars trolling the streets of L.A., no sign that Don had been spotted. Good thing, Don decided, because without sirens neither Megan nor David was likely to get here soon. Both were taking side streets, heading for Griffith Park, hoping to guess just where Krikov was headed and cut him off without being obvious about it. Don took the opportunity to sidle up closer behind the SUV; there was entirely too great a possibility that Krikov would hop onto one of the expressways and floor it, leaving Don in the dust.

That was _not_ going to happen.


	18. Brightest Crayon 18

More data.

"How long did you drive to get here?" Charlie asked Darren.

Darren tried to think. "All night."

_He drove all night long, without a driver's license, and didn't get into an accident. Something to be thankful for_. Charlie resolved once again, as soon as this mess was completed, to thoroughly examine the Prius for scratches, dents, and other signs of damage.

On the other hand, that didn't bode well for getting out of here. Assumptions: Darren drove eight hours. Nice round number, give or take a couple of hours. Next assumption: average of thirty miles per hour. Some probably were around sixty on a freeway, some slower on the roads getting out of the CalSci parking lots. A shaky assumption, considering that it was evening and there was minimal traffic to slow him down, but it would do until more accurate data could be obtained. All of which meant that Charlie and his new friends could be as far away as two hundred and forty miles from Los Angeles, which would be a very long distance to try to walk.

There would probably be some town or way station that he could stop at. Charlie checked his pocket; yes, his wallet was still there with an adequate amount of cash plus credit cards. If he could get to some place civilized, he could contact Don.

Next question: Nancy and Darren. Charlie was in good shape—he still routinely rode his bike to CalSci, and frequent hikes were a passion of his—but Nancy was not. Darren was big and strong, but looked as though weight-lifting was more his style. Long distances wouldn't be. No contest; they'd slow him down, especially if Charlie tried to break into a jog to make some time. Okay, better to have them wait here where there was plenty of food and water, and comfortable beds. Charlie would send back help once he was able to call out—that, and a couple gallons of gas to repossess his Prius. _And it won't be Darren driving it back to town_, he promised himself.

Last question: the data. The paper with the formula, along with Ben's last note, sat on the coffee table in the center of the great room. What to do with it? Two choices: leave it here, or bring it along with him. Again, no contest. Charlie had no idea what the pair of them would do with it—_would Nancy try to make it into stew??_—but there was no doubt in his mind that it would be a lot safer in his possession. Once he met up with Don, he could get the formula back into Tony Lavozzi's hands, although Don would probably want to put it into his Evidence file to prosecute someone. That didn't matter. Don and Tony could fight over it, once Charlie got it back into safe hands. National security versus the Justice system. Not Charlie's problem.

Charlie outlined his plan to Nancy and Darren, picking up the paper and folding it and tucking it into his back pocket. "I'm going to have the two of you stay right here," he said firmly, using the same tone of voice that worked when assigning homework problems to his freshman calc class, the one with kids who didn't see why they had to study calculus when they really wanted to learn astronomy. "I need someone to be here in case someone comes looking for us," he made up on the spot. "You need to be here to tell them where I've gone." Which completely ignored the concept that anyone who arrived at this over-sized cabin would probably have seen Charlie on the road before they ever got here, but that didn't occur to either Nancy or Darren.

Nancy looked at Darren. Darren looked at Nancy.

They both looked at Charlie, doubt in their eyes. "Okay," Nancy said.

"You'll come back and get us?" Darren asked.

"I'll come back and get you," Charlie reassured them. _But it will be in a comfortable car, preferably driven by Don, David, Megan, or Colby, and a certain couple of papers will be in a very safe place._ "You two stay right here, where I can find you later."

The one good thing about this affair, Charlie discovered, is that when kidnapped to a cabin in the woods it is likely that the amenities in the cabin include hiking gear. Charlie found a small back pack and a couple of bottles that he filled with water. He also eyed the left over food in the kitchen, and chose to leave it behind.

But not before discarding the cheese with the blue fuzz on it.

"I could have cut off the blue fuzz," Nancy complained. "Cheese tastes good. There's some cheese that's supposed to have blue fuzz! It's called blue cheese, cause it's got blue fuzz. It tastes good."

"That's okay," Charlie told her. "When we get back, I buy you some more cheese with blue fuzz. This is the wrong color blue," he told her in desperation. "It's too fuzzy."

He set out on his trek before Nancy could tell him that she liked it fuzzy.

* * *

"We're on the Glendale, before it turns into Foothill," Don reported to David. "We're moving, David. I need you. He's going to spot me."

"I'm trying, Don. You want me to hit the sirens, clear my way onto the freeway?"

"Do it." Don made a command decision. "You're far enough away that it won't affect us here. Crap, what is he doing? David, he's moving _south_ on 210, back toward L.A. Okay, now he's getting back onto Crest Highway. What's he doing?" Don repeated. "Where's he going? There's only houses in there. Suburbs. You think he's heading for a house, someone he knows?"

"You think he's made you, and is trying to throw you off?" David countered.

"I don't think so," Don replied slowly. "I'm dropping back a bit, just in case. Let me switch over to Megan, see where she is." He hit the buttons, keeping his eyes on the road and the now swiftly moving traffic. "Megan?"

"Way out, Don." Megan sounded chagrinned. "I thought he'd aim for the west, closer to the piers. I'd have thought that he'd have a yacht or something, so that he could make an escape by sea. I was wrong. I'm coming back east right now."

"ETA?"

"Long enough that you shouldn't count on me; not yet, Don."

"Right." Hard decision time. Tighten the distance so as not to lose the guy, or drop back and hope? Krikov was already wanted, and Don had a legal right to stop the man and arrest him on the spot and would be lauded for it.

Don, however, wanted more. There was a reason that Krikov had met with Bartholomew Gideon, and that reason very likely involved the stolen formula from Lavozzi Industries. Krikov was almost certainly going to where ever Gideon had told him the information had been hidden.

Okay, Krikov was now in the suburbs—or, he would be as soon as he exited this road. Don contacted FBI headquarters. "Quick search, now," he instructed someone in front of their computer. "I need to know every house that's owned by Make A Better Day or by its CEO Bartholomew Gideon, and I need to know which ones are in the vicinity of the La Canada Flintridge. You know, near the country club?"

"Searching." Minutes flew by. "Still searching."

"Search a little faster," Don complained. "I'm in pursuit, here."

"Sorry, Special Agent Eppes. Still searching—got it. Sorry, Eppes, the computer says nothing. No matches."

"What do you mean, no matches? There's got to be!" But Krikov still hadn't stopped, Don realized. The black marketer was still cruising along, heading toward the hills. "Where the hell is he going?"

It was going to be really tough to tail this guy. Already they were moving into the hills, past the suburban houses that were way too expensive for any reasonable person to buy, past the homes a little further out and well into something best described as forest. The other vehicles were getting more and more sparse. Middle of the day, long and winding road through the mountains outside of L.A.? Don really needed back up. "David?"

Nothing. Don glanced at the little window on his cell: empty. No bars, telling him that he could call whomever he pleased. No cell service, no nearby towers to carry the signal, everything wiped out in this valley. Damn.

And, with only a handgun in his shoulder holster, Don had some serious reservations about trying to pull Krikov over on this long and empty road heading out of the 'burbs and into the hills. Moves like that were likely to get him killed. Krikov wasn't just any two bit hood. He was a man who'd succeeded by shooting fastest and straightest at his enemies on both sides of the law.

He sighed. Both David and Megan knew where Don was headed, that he was still moving north. They'd catch up with him soon, David first and then Megan. Cell service would kick back in, and his back up would arrive to back him up.

Time to wait. Don allowed the Suburban to drop back a bit, made it look as though he was headed up toward Tujunga for some camping. With a truck like the Suburban, it was a useful cover. Don had lost track of the number of times that he really had used the Suburban to go camping up this way.

The curve a mile ahead showed Krikov's SUV to be continuing north. Don kept on driving, tailing the suspect at a distance.

* * *

Charlie was making the best of a bad situation.

They weren't hiking boots, but this wasn't a hiking trail. It was a road, even if it wasn't well-paved, and his comfortable cross-trainers weren't giving him any trouble. Charlie was under no illusion that he wouldn't have blisters at the end of this trek, but for now he was content.

The air was clean, and not overly hot, suggesting that he was somewhere higher up in elevation. This far into the summer meant that Los Angeles turned into a griddle but only a couple of hours away in the mountains the temperature was pleasant and even desirable. Charlie had gone hiking in similar places many times, and he loved listening to the birds chirp at each other, the brooks babble as they carried the remnants of mountain-top snow down to various lakes and reservoirs, and the breezes whispering through the branches filled with greenery.

He inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of pine. He couldn't have gotten lost; there was only one road leading away from the cabin that Darren and Nancy had taken him to. Later, at some point, there might be decisions to be made as to which way to turn, but Charlie would cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, there was simply the joy of putting one foot in front of the other.

Charlie hiked onward.

* * *

Don tried his cell again. Still no luck. Either he was too far in a valley, too high up on a mountain, or nowhere near a cell tower, but the bottom line was that he was unable to call either Megan or David.

He could only assume that they were trailing after him. It's what he himself would have done under the same circumstances. Fortunately, there weren't too many possibilities for them to take a wrong turn.

Where the hell was Krikov headed to? Victorville? That was the next major—and Don used the term loosely—oasis of civilization on this route.

Don hadn't seen the rental SUV for at least five minutes, but that didn't trouble him. Just as for his following team, there was little chance for Don to make a mistake. There were no turn off's, no other roads enabling Krikov to change direction. Nothing but an occasional deer on the side of the road, looking up at the great roaring machine zipping by and stirring up a cloud of dust.

There was another curve up ahead, and Don fully expected to catch a glimpse of the SUV as it negotiated the arc. Even if he didn't, Don wasn't worried. He could always speed up if he needed to. He had the Suburban tuned to within an inch of its life, and he strongly doubted that any rental SUV could match the thing for speed or maneuverability. Even if it could, he reasoned, not only had Don learned advanced driving techniques from some of the best at Quantico, but he'd cut his sixteen year old driving teeth on exactly these roads. There wasn't a snowball's chance in the high desert for Krikov to out-drive Special Agent Eppes. Not here, not in the mountains east of L.A.

Which, in retrospect, was why Krikov didn't even try.

The first inkling that Don had that something was going very wrong was when an earthquake-sized shudder wracked the Suburban, accompanied by a deafening bang. The second was when the Suburban slewed around, knocked the hell out of the guard rail on the passenger's side of the road, and tilted over the edge.

_"Crap!"_

Don didn't even realize that he'd yelled anything. The Suburban rolled over the guard rail, flattening it in the process, and tumbled down the slope.

Somewhere along the third rotation of the Suburban, Don's brain, working furiously, put it together: he'd been made. Krikov had taken out Don's front tire, with Don traveling at some sixty miles per hour on this lonely road, using a high-powered sniper special with a scope that Don could only drool over.

The next thing he knew, Don was dangling from the seat belts that had prevented him from flying out through the now glass-free shattered windshield. He devoutly hoped that the period of unconsciousness had been brief, realizing that it must have been because otherwise Special Agent Don Eppes would be dead. Krikov was too smart to let an adversary tumble down a cliff and then just walk away. Krikov right now was picking his way along the slope, gun in hand, ready to finish the job before heading off to where ever he was expected.

_Make haste slowly_. Don had always hated that saying, hated even more that it was true. He forced himself to move deliberately, carefully unsnapping the buckles that now kept him trapped, ignoring the crystalline shards of shattered glass that covered his chest. He tossed a glance outside; yes, there was Krikov up on top of the slope on the road. The black marketeer obviously also lived by the same rule, since he too wasn't hurrying down to administer the _coup de gras_. Instead, he was moving at a steady pace that still was much too fast for Don to appreciate.

The buckle gave way, and Don all but fell onto the steering wheel located beneath him. _No time_. Don grabbed the cell—there was always the chance that it would be of use later on, when out of this valley—and felt for the handgun in his shoulder holster. Still there; good. He longed to hustle around to the back to drag out the 2000 HTR, the heavy duty rifle that he always kept in there, but one look up the slope squelched that idea. He needed to leave the area, and he needed to leave _now_.

_I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about car safety measures_, he thought, blessing the fact that everything seemed to be in close to working order. _I could even kiss one of those crash dummies_. There was some funny jiggling inside his chest but it was ignore-able, and Don, under the circumstances, was going to ignore it for as long as he could. He scrambled out of the cab of the Suburban and hurried away from the site, keeping the wreck between him and his pursuer.

Could Don take him out? Possibly. Don paused behind a massive boulder and checked his ammunition. Full clip: good. At the moment, putting a bullet between Krikov's eyes or even straight through his heart sounded like a very good idea. Yelling "Freeze! FBI!" might or might not happen, depending on how close Krikov was and how likely Krikov was to shoot first.

Then he caught sight of what Krikov was carrying. No mere handgun for one of the world's most wanted. No, this piece of high level slime was carrying something with a long barrel on it. Something that would qualify as a flintlock if it were a couple of centuries ago. It certainly wasn't something snub-nosed.

Which meant that Krikov's range was significantly longer than Don's. It meant that Krikov could put his own bullet between Don's eyes, or straight through his heart, while Don was waiting to get close enough for Don's bullet not to wimp out and fall to the ground.

It meant that Don had better get the hell out of Dodge.

* * *

It could have been a large tree branch, cracking in the wind and falling to the ground with a sharp retort. Such things were well-known to Charlie, and happened occasionally while he was out hiking or jogging. This was a forested area and such an occurrence was very probable, except for two things: one, there was no wind and two, Charlie had spent enough time on the firing range to be able to distinguish between a branch breaking and a gun shot. Not a lot of time around guns, granted, but enough so that there really wasn't any doubt in his mind as to which of the two categories the sound belonged.

Next question: what to do? It could have been from a hunter, going after some of the plentiful deer in the area, possibly even a farmer trying to drive off the coyotes. Or, much more likely given the way Charlie's luck had been running, it was someone after the stolen formula which was currently hiding in Charlie's back pocket.

Charlie automatically put it into the form of a logic equation: if A, then help was at hand. The hunter/farmer would have access to communications, which meant that Charlie would gain access and be able to call Don to hand over this hot potato. However, if B, then Charlie would be walking straight toward disaster, not just for himself but for Tony LaVozzi, Lavozzi Industries, the FBI, and national security.

Which one? Charlie realized that he lacked adequate information in order to make an informed decision. There wasn't enough data to even sway the probabilities to one option or the other. The best he could come up with was _if A, then not B. If B, then not A_. Mutually exclusive statements, requiring conclusion C: the resolution of the logic statement will be predicated on identification of the owner of the weapon firing the aforementioned bullet.

That statement re-defined the problem, Charlie was pleased to discover. Instead of requiring that Charlie approach the owner of the weapon, it recommended that he observe said owner to determine the likelihood that the owner was someone approachable or not. Who knew? The person firing the weapon might even be Don himself, realizing that Charlie was missing and coming to get him.

_Much_ more satisfactory. Charlie headed in the direction of the shot.

* * *

Trees. Don blessed them, kept to the tree line. It slowed him down, but made it more difficult for Krikov to draw a bead on his back. Any bullet would be more likely to lodge itself in a tree than between Don's shoulder blades.

Don took a moment, gasping for breath, to locate Krikov. Yes, there he was, damn him, trotting through the meadow that Don had circled around. The man was out in the open, a perfect shot—if Don had had a weapon with a longer range. A sniper would have taken time for a cup of coffee, that shot was so perfect. Don futilely wished that Edgerton was here; Krikov would be a dead man instead of a hunter of men. The fact that Krikov was so blasé about exposing himself told Don that Krikov knew exactly what kind of weapon that Don was carrying.

The jiggling inside was getting more noticeable. Broken rib or two? Maybe. Don had considered himself damn lucky to roll the Suburban and actually walk away. The urge to cough hit, and Don stifled it. Not only would it attract Krikov's attention, but it would _hurt_.

Closer. Krikov was getting closer. Promising himself not to let out the whimper that threatened to escape his throat, Don hauled himself back upright and let go of the tree that he was hanging onto. He moved off, further into the dense undergrowth.

He never heard it, but he felt it. Searing flame ripped through his waist, spun him around, knocked him against a sturdy tree trunk. The cold ground prevented him from falling any further. _Crap. This means I've fallen. This means I'm not on my feet any more_.

Then the sound of the shot caught up with him.

_Little late, dude_.


	19. Brightest Crayon 19

"It's got to be Don." Megan strove to keep her concern under control and, to do her credit, was succeeding. "He's in an area where there's no service. A situation like this, he wouldn't let his cell run out of juice. That's not like him. He has to be in a valley. Or maybe he's too close to the suspect to call us back."

"I saw a power cable in the Suburban just a couple of days ago," David agreed. He stared off along the road, seeing the dark pavement wind off along the curves of the mountain. The road was deserted; the lone motorcycle was rapidly disappearing into the distance. The two wheeled vehicle had passed the two FBI agents only five minutes ago. "Power shouldn't be the issue."

Megan had caught up to David shortly before that, David deliberately slowing down once they'd lost contact with Don. There was no point in speeding; there wasn't any firm end point to speed to. Now was the time for slow and deliberate work, time to figure out where their team leader had gone to, and why he wasn't calling them back.

"What about Krikov?" Megan pushed. "Did Headquarters return your call yet?"

"Nope." David pulled out his own cell. "Let's see if I can get a signal." He dialed, and was rewarded by ringing on the other end. "Sinclair. Put me through—thanks, Marcy." He listened carefully. Megan watched as David's eyebrows crawled higher and higher. "Definitely not the case," David told the phone. "We have a positive ID from Don Eppes. Krikov is definitely in the country. You can pass that along." He listened a moment longer. "Right. Right." He hung up, and turned back to Megan. "The CIA thought that Krikov was in Kiev. They had a hard time believing that they were wrong. They wanted us to say that Don had made a mistake."

Megan sniffed. "Don make a mistake of this magnitude? It could happen." She deliberately looked up at the sky. "Oh, look. I see a number of pigs, flying in a delta formation."

David was grim. "Ask 'em to keep an eye out for a missing FBI agent." He gestured toward the two cars. "Shall we move out?"

* * *

"Don!" Charlie hissed.

The man with the rifle was getting closer, and there was no time to waste. The handgun dangling from Don's hand, however, indicated that caution was in order.

_Definitely_ in order. The gun came up with Don's hand, in an approximate line toward Charlie.

Not good. Don Eppes was in trouble; the wet redness at his waist indicated that more than clearly. The staggering from tree to tree also added weight to Charlie's hypothesis. "Don!" he hissed again, hoping that the man with the rifle wouldn't hear him. "Don! Over here!"

Don tried to pick his head up, almost achieving a posture of listening. "Charlie?" As in, _what the hell are you doing out here in the woods with a perp trying to kill me?_ The gun in his hand drooped.

That was what Charlie needed to see. Don wasn't going to shoot him in a misguided attempt to protect himself from the gunman. He darted over to his brother, sliding an arm underneath the side away from the redness. "C'mon."

Charlie had already decided, based on additional data, that his previous assumption of _B_ was the correct assumption: the owner of the weapon that fired the gunshot was someone after Tony LaVozzi's secret formula. Even if that wasn't quite correct, the fact that his brother was trying to escape from the shooter seemed enough evidence to warrant Charlie removing his brother from the vicinity with all haste. Conclusively correlating the gunman with the formula could wait for a more opportune moment.

"Charlie…"

"It's okay, Don. I've got you."

Don summoned his fading strength. "Charlie, there's a guy—"

"I know. Shh. Don't talk. He'll hear you." Charlie pulled Don forward, away from the site, as fast as he could. His eyes picked out the small animal trails that made for easier travel, less underbrush to kick aside in order to pass. It wasn't easy, making the way for two grown men, but Charlie was motivated.

How bad was Don's wound? Charlie didn't dare look. Right now, it didn't even matter. If he stopped to check, the man with the gun would catch up and then neither Eppes brother would be in any condition to care. The added bonus for the gunman would be the formula in Charlie's back pocket.

No, the first dictum of any situation was to get all participants away from danger. That was Charlie's priority. He grabbed more firmly onto Don's wrist, Don's arm lying across Charlie's shoulder, and hitched them along as quickly as he could.

* * *

It was boring, being at the cabin.

Whenever Nancy and Darren had gone there in the past, other people were always there and set up things for them to do. Meredith in particular would arrange for them to go hiking, would hire someone from somewhere to guide them and make sure that they got back safely. Sometimes Mr. Gideon would come to the cabin with a big van that could carry eight people and take everyone to the park nearby. Nancy liked that, because the park had a lot of nice flowers to look at and smell. They would dress in their bathing suits and go swimming in the lake at the park. Nancy really liked that.

Right now, it was boring.

There wasn't a lot of food. Nancy made good toast with jam, but Darren was getting tired of toast with jam. There was peanut butter, but Nancy didn't like the way peanut butter tasted.

"I want ice cream," Darren said.

"We don't have ice cream."

"We used to."

"We got ice cream when we went to the park," Nancy agreed. That was one of the other nice things about going to the park.

"Maybe we should go to the park," Darren suggested. "We could get ice cream." He looked in his pocket, and dragged out some bills. "I have money. I can buy ice cream."

"I'd like that," Nancy said. "Let's go to the park."

* * *

More cold ground. Don was down before he could object, Charlie helping him to slump onto the soft earth, the pine needles sending up a soft and fragrant bed to lie on. "Charlie—"

"Shh," Charlie hushed him. "He'll hear you."

Yeah. He would. Don realized that he was going into shock, that his mind—usually sharp as the knife that Krikov was reputed to carry and use—was no longer functioning. He couldn't remember the last few feet. Hell, he couldn't even remember getting here, where ever _here_ was.

His legs weren't working, either. His knees turned treacherously to day old blue jello, the kind that nobody wanted to eat, and Charlie had taken advantage of that fact to put Don exactly where he wanted him.

"Charlie—"

"Sh," Charlie repeated, holding a finger to Don's lips. "Stay here. Don't move, and be quiet."

"Charlie—"

"I'm going to lead him away," Charlie breathed into Don's ear. "There's no way I can do that with you like this." He pushed Don back down onto the pine bed, pulling some of the bushes over him. "Stay quiet, and he won't see you. I'll come back for you as soon as I lose him."

_Stupid idea, Chuck_, was Don's thought. He opened his mouth to tell him so, only to realize that his voice was about as helpless as his knees.

_Crap_.

* * *

It only took a moment or two to dust away his foot prints, and mere seconds later Charlie was trotting along the deer trail, away from Don.

Don's condition frightened him. Charlie had never seen his brother so pale, and he'd never had Don actually collapse to the ground, falling from Charlie's arms. How bad was the wound? There wasn't time to find out and right now it didn't matter. Charlie wasn't in any place to do anything about it. The only thing Charlie could do was to lead the gunman away and hope that Don would continue to live until Charlie could summon help.

Leading the gunman away he could do. Charlie was in excellent shape; hiking and jogging were some of his past times, and he was about to put both of them to good use. He headed straight up the mountainside, leaving a trail that a blind man could follow, making certain to snap a few branches just in case the gunman needed an auditory hint.

He kept going until he was mildly winded, then checked his watch: twenty minutes, and around the mountain's higher edge so that neither could see Special Agent Don Eppes. Twenty minutes suggested at least two uphill miles and possibly more. That ought to be enough. Time to circle back.

First: look for the gunman. Had the man followed the trail, followed Charlie? He should have. Charlie put himself into the middle of a number of bushes so that he couldn't be seen, just in case, and peered back along the trail, looking down the mountain for any trace of his pursuer.

Nothing. Not even a sound beyond the sighing of a tiny breeze ambling down from the top of the mountain. Even the birds were taking a siesta for the mid-afternoon.

Where was the gunman? No sign of him, not a hint.

Time for more logic: if the gunman had found Don, he would have killed him on the spot. Charlie refused to believe that was the case, and he had the lack of the noise of a gunshot to back up that assumption. No, the gunman had to have followed Charlie. Charlie had looked back to see the man on his trail, had even hastened his own pace once or twice to keep well ahead of the man, just in case. Even though he couldn't see him now, Charlie had gotten the occasional glimpse of the man trailing him, rifle in hand.

Charlie scanned the surrounding terrain, choosing to go back down the slope in order to circle back to his brother. It was the sensible choice: there were far more trees—he was getting close to the tree line—and the cover was better. And: it was downhill. That meant that Charlie would go faster. Goal: get back to Don and get him out of here. Maybe he could even locate Don's Suburban, and they could drive back to civilization. Charlie didn't like maneuvering Don's monster vehicle, but any port in a storm…

He set his lips grimly. Back to Don.

* * *

"That's a car," Nancy pointed out. "Look, there's a car."

"That's not a car," Darren told her scornfully. "It's a sports utility vehicle." He pronounced the words carefully, with all the precision of a car enthusiast. He looked around. "I don't see the driver."

Nancy too looked around. "Neither do I."

"Do you think it has gas?"

"We can look."

They both peered into the SUV.

"I see the key. It's on the floor."

"Are the doors locked?"

"No."

"Can we drive it to the park for ice cream?"

"I can drive it," Darren said stoutly. "I drove Mr. Math Professor's car, and I did good."

"Yes, you did," Nancy agreed. "Do you know how to get to the park?"

"Sure," Darren lied. "Get in."

* * *

Megan spoke into her cell. "Pick Gideon up for questioning," she directed the agent on the other end. "We don't have enough to charge him, but we need to know why he was meeting with Vasily Krikov. We need to know what he told him, and where he told Krikov to go. Threaten him with treason if you have to; there's a good chance that he'll break pretty quickly. With what we have for certain on Krikov, we have a good chance of making it stick." She listened for a moment, and changed the subject. "Have you been able to contact Charlie Eppes yet? No? What do you mean, no? We _need_ him, Mike. I've got my team leader lost somewhere in these mountains, and I need Charlie to work some math magic to point me in the most likely direction. I can't do that, Mike, if you don't get hold of him! Call Professor Fleinhardt or Ramanujan. Get your ass over to CalSci and look for him!" She closed up the phone. "They can't find Charlie," she told David grimly, as if he couldn't guess from listening to her half of the phone conversation.

David grunted unhappily. "What a time for the man to go hole up somewhere to think. His brother's missing in these hills, possibly dead. We need him, Megan. Him and his equations and a rabbit out of a hat."

"Well, we don't have him." Megan scanned the mountainside, hoping against hope to see some movement that would tell her that her team leader was trekking across the countryside, preferably near a road where she could pick him up and scold him for scaring them all this way. "Suggestions?"

David tried to think. "Anything from Todd on places owned by Gideon or Make A Better Day?"

"Came up blank there. They own a few properties, but nothing out this way."

"Anything they could have hidden? Subsidiary companies?"

"No, nothi—" Megan broke off. "No, not subsidiary _companies_, David! Subsidiary _people_!" She flipped open her cell once again. "Todd? Megan. Listen, priority one! Look for any property associated with any of the following names: Reuben Magenbrot. Nancy Merrin." She thought for another moment. "Meredith Aarons. If none of those work, pull names from the employee lists of Make A Better Day and go through them one by one. Go to the director, Todd, and get approval to use more people on this. We've got Don Eppes missing on the mountain, and Vasily Krikov on the scene, which means that we move fast on this or we lose everything. The director will approve it." She closed down the call. "That's that. What do we do now, David?"

David frowned, and looked at the wide expanse of trees. "Keep going?"


	20. Brightest Crayon 20

The pain in his gut finally got bad enough that Don couldn't pretend to be unconscious any longer.

Movement was not something he wanted to consider. One try at picking up his head convinced him of that. No, lying here sniffing pine needles was definitely a better thing to be doing.

Hurt like hell, and it didn't seem to be getting any better. Don didn't like the thought but it seemed as though he was going to have to get up and do something about it. _Short term pain, for long term gain_. That was the saying.

Memory restored itself. Don groaned, couldn't help it, and only half the groan came from pain. _Charlie!_ His fool little brother was somewhere on this mountain with a gun-crazy black marketeer and going to get himself killed! Stupid brother hadn't even thought to take Don's handgun with him. Of course not; Charlie didn't think in terms of guns. A gun wasn't part of his usual wardrobe. Not that the gun would have done Don himself any good. Krikov had a long range rifle and the skill to use it. Charlie would be dead three times over before he got close enough to plug Krikov.

Don needed to get up, needed to move. He rolled over onto his side—and lay there, gasping, begging for oxygen to come back into his lungs and replace the blackness that covered his sight and the pain that refused to let him do anything further.

Too many minutes later—Don had no idea of how long it took—and he was ready for the next step: hands and knees.

That was better. The searing inferno in his side didn't object to that position quite as strongly, even though his gun dangling in his shoulder holster against the wound tried to add in its share. Don would have removed the holster and tacked it somewhere else if he hadn't been afraid that twisting around to get it would cause more pain than simply leaving it to tap his side.

Okay, half way up. Now for the other half. Grab a tree, use it to help hoist the rest of the bod upward into a semi-standing position. Grab the waist; maybe squeezing the pain into submission would help.

No, it wouldn't. Blackness wavered in Don's line of sight.

He had to move forward, had to walk. Had to find Charlie. Had…to…

Don ended up with his face in the dirt, wishing he had the strength to turn his head so that he could breathe. _Dammit all!_ He was in the thick of things, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do to alter the outcome. His brother was out there, facing a killer who outgunned him, and Don himself was slowly bleeding out onto dead leaves from last year's divesting of foliage. And to make matters worse, he couldn't even call for help—

He broke off. Couldn't he call for help? Sure, the cell signal cut out, leaving his team in his dust several miles back, but that was _several miles back_. Don Eppes, and more importantly, Don Eppes' cell phone was now in a different location, one that might have a bar or two of service.

Don fished in his pocket for the cell, blessing the fact that it was in his good right side pocket instead of in his left which would require joggling his bullet-laden wound. His fingers closed around the smooth object, dragging it out.

First things first: did it still have power?

Didn't matter. Don's eyes wouldn't focus. He couldn't tell if it had power, or signal, or anything else. He flipped it open, hit speed dial by the feel of the buttons in his fingers. David had been right behind him on the road, he remembered, only a few miles back and Megan only a little further out. They should still be in the general vicinity.

"Don! Where are you?"

"David." At some point in time, he'd remember to give an offering to whatever pagan deities roamed these hills, but right now it was all he could do to get any kind of message across. His voice didn't seem to be working particularly well. Had he told David who it was? Oh, right; David saw his name in the window of his own cell.

He must have said something, because David kept talking at him.

"Stay right where you are, Don. Don't try to move. Megan's calling back to Headquarters, going to see about triangulating your signal. Don't hang up on me, Don. We're going to find you. Don, can you hear me? Say something, Don. What's around you, guy? Talk to me, Don."

Don groaned. Didn't order the sound; it just released itself from his throat. He coughed, clearing his throat, trying to turn the groan into something a little less helpless. "Trees. Lots of damn trees, David."

"Trees. Okay, that's good, Don. Trees."

_Like hell it is, Sinclair. That doesn't give you one effing clue as to where I am_.

"What else, Don? Where's the Suburban?"

"Rolled it," Don croaked. The cell slipped from his fingers, ended up on the dirt.

It was still open, and he could still hear David's voice. "Don! Don! Are you there? Don! Answer me, dammit!"

"David…" It seemed a safe thing to say, something that would emerge from between his lips and not sound like he was dying. "Rolled the Suburban," he repeated, hoping that the words would travel the inches to the open cell on the ground and into the receiver. "Rolled the Suburban." Then he remembered what else had happened, and fear lent him strength. "Charlie! Got to get to Charlie!"

"Charlie? What about Charlie, Don?" David's words were faint, barely understandable.

"Krikov." It was taking more and more effort to talk. Vision was a lost cause at the moment. "Krikov's after Charlie…"

It didn't matter if the cell phone worked any more, because Special Agent Don Eppes was out cold.

* * *

"Don! Don!" David shouted into the cell as if simple volume alone would bring back his team leader.

"David?" Megan was watching her partner closely, ear still to her own cell, waiting for Headquarters to locate and triangulate the signal.

"He's not saying anything more," David told her. "I think he passed out."

"What does Charlie have to do with this?"

"I don't know, but Don said that Krikov is after Charlie." David looked away angrily.

"We can't find Charlie, either. And with his security clearance…" Megan didn't finish the statement. She spoke into the cell once more. "Todd, grab another team. I need an All Points out for Charles Eppes. We just got word that Vasily Krikov is after him. He's top security, Todd. Have the team do a thorough sweep of CalSci now, and follow up on all leads. Alert airport and dock security; we're going to need everything searched for him. Notify the NSA; they'll back us up." She came up with another thought. "Todd, Don said that he rolled his Suburban. Get choppers up into the air; have them look for a fresh crash along Route Two. That shouldn't be too much territory to cover; we'll be able to find him faster. Hustle it, Todd. Tell LAPD that we need to borrow one of theirs, for national security, priority one." She closed her cell. "David?"

"I've still got an open signal from Don," David told her, "even though he's not saying anything." He looked around helplessly. "I don't dare move from this spot, in case the signal goes. What do we do?"

"You stay here," Megan decided. "Keep the call open if at all possible. I'll drive on ahead, see if I can locate Don's vehicle or where he went off the road. If I call in, don't answer; keep Don's call on priority until Headquarters notifies us that they have it triangulated. Let my messages go to voicemail—"

"Damn," David interrupted. "Signal's gone." He looked up at the sky, as if he could see the phone calls arrowing through the clouds. "Doesn't matter now. Shall I try to get him back?"

"Yes," Megan told him. "I'll go on ahead. If Headquarters gets a location, I'll phone it over to you."

* * *

Downhill. Charlie liked downhill. It helped him move faster and, with a man with a rifle on his tail, moving fast was a really nice benefit to heading downhill. Charlie let gravity pitch in, allowing himself to all but plummet down the slopes, making distance between the gunman and himself.

_Still need to circle around, lead the man away from Don_. That was the priority. So Charlie scuffled up his tracks, made the trail as difficult to follow as possible, always kept to the trees and the underbrush so that he couldn't be seen on open ground and trailed that way. Optimum outcome to the problem: maximize the distance between the gunman and his injured brother Don. Secondary optimal outcome, impacting the first: maximize the distance between Charlie and the gunman, so as to maximize the distance between Don and the gunman. Parameters: speed of Charlie. Speed of gunman. Difficulty of following the trail, with the secondary parameters of Charlie's skill at muddling the trail and the gunman's ability to see through the muddling. Charlie's skill was a known variable, dependent on the aspects of the environment but the gunman's ability to trail him was the unknown. Charlie chose to assign a high degree of skill, to be on the safe side, which meant that a lot of distance was needed.

Charlie ran.

He almost didn't see it. Charlie was scanning for open areas, in order to avoid them, when he realized that he'd stumbled across the road.

Not what he wanted. If he traveled on the road, he'd make better time but the very openness would allow the gunman to more efficiently see him and estimate his path.

On the other hand…Charlie tossed a glance behind him. He'd left the gunman far behind and he had some five minutes of leeway, he estimated. Using the road for two or three minutes would give Charlie a clear advantage in distance, and leaving the road at the end of those three minutes back into the bush would significantly increase Charlie's ability to both enhance the distance and decrease the trail notes for the gunman to track.

Decision made: Charlie would again follow the road, only this time he'd head away from Don, back toward L.A. With luck, the gunman would think that Charlie had abandoned his brother in favor of going for help. With even more luck, Charlie would run across a motorist who would stop to help, someone who wouldn't be terrified at his disheveled appearance and think that Charlie was the next serial killer on the loose.

Which was when he heard voices. Charlie's heart leaped; already there were motorists, and getting them to go for help was the next step. He raced to the spot where the car—it was a tall SUV, blue metallic paint glinting in the afternoon sun. The motorists—a man and a woman—were standing behind the vehicle, on the other side from Charlie's approach. Charlie swerved to go around, to try to greet the pair in as non-threatening a manner as possible.

The response he received was not what he expected.

"Hi, Mr. Math Professor," Nancy chirped. "Did you find help?"


	21. Brightest Crayon 21

"You got something?"

"About six miles up the road, David. The guard rail was taken out, and it was recent."

"You see the Suburban?"

"No. I see something, but the trees are in the way. I'm heading down the slope to investigate."

"Six miles? I'll be there in five."

"_Ten_ minutes, David. Lots of curves, lots of cliffs. I don't need you rolling your car as well."

"Right. Ten."

* * *

Charlie's jaw dropped. He had to try twice before he could get anything coherent to emerge. "What are you doing here?"

"We decided to go for ice cream," Darren explained.

"Darren couldn't remember how to get to the park," Nancy added with a certain amount of scorn for her compatriot.

That wasn't important. What was important was that they had, somehow and against all conceivable luck, acquired a mode of transportation. "Where did you get this car?"

"It's not a car," Darren told him. "It's an SUV."

"Right. Where did you get it?"

"Down the road." Nancy pointed.

Big question time. Charlie took a deep breath. "Does it run?"

Darren grinned. "Yup."

That answer was in contradiction to several statistical probabilities, all of which Charlie could recite at the drop of the proverbial hat, but the important caveat to all those analyses was _one_. They were all several million or so to _one_.

_One_ chance was all that Charlie needed.

"Give me the key," he ordered. "Get in. We have to get my brother, and—"

_Snick_.

The sound of a loaded rifle being cocked.

Yet another probability, several million to _one_, coming to pass.

A heavily accented voice came from behind the SUV.

"Next person move, I shoot."

* * *

So tired.

Waves of agony, all digging into his side.

Good thing he couldn't see. Didn't want to know how much blood he was losing, moving around like this.

The ground felt good, lying there. Cold. No movement. No effort.

Too bad he had to move on. Stupid brother, running off. Serve him right if Don got there too late to save him.

Handgun in his holster, banging against the hole in his waist. Hurt like hell every time it connected.

_Hope I don't have to use it_.

* * *

Not fair.

That was the first thing to cross Charlie's shell-shocked brain: _not fair!_

Kidnapped. Cross-country trek. Finding Don covered in his own blood. Running from a gunman with murder on his mind. Coming across Nancy and Darren with a working vehicle, hope springing into existence.

And now this.

_Not fair_.

So far, Charlie had only seen this man from a distance, and he would have been extraordinarily happy to keep it that way. Medium height, blond hair, medium build, but with a well-toned body and muscles that said that keeping himself in shape was important to this man's line of business. Considering that this man's line of business included shooting FBI agents, Charlie tended to agree.

It was the eyes: icy blue and cold. The rest of the man was unremarkable, well able to blend in with a crowd, but the eyes were what gave it away. This man was a killer. Charlie knew that as well he knew the first hundred digits of pi. He carried the rifle in his hands as easily as Charlie held a laser pointer for a lecture, as comfortable with his tool as Charlie was with his laptop.

This man was a killer.

A Slavic accent of some sort; Charlie couldn't identify which country it came from. At the moment, that was irrelevant.

The man regarded the three of them. "Not nice, stealing car."

"It's not a car, it's a SUV," Darren corrected him.

Charlie winced.

"Where I come from, we shoot people who steal car."

Darren shut up.

The man looked them over thoroughly, noting the lack of weapons. He glanced up and down the road. He came to a decision. "Move. Over there." He indicated a grove of trees, not easily seen from the road. "Go."

"Why?" Nancy asked, before Charlie could shush her. "Mr. Math Professor, why does he want us to go there?"

The man took it upon himself to explain. "More confusion," he said, a vicious smirk trying to emerge. "Take off clothes."

"But it's cold."

"Or I shoot you first, then take off clothes," the man told Nancy. Then he offered the explanation. "Make look like orgy. Confuse cops little while."

"What's an orgy?"

The man frowned for a moment, then his face cleared. "Ah. One of Gideon's morons."

"I'm not a moron—"

"It's okay, Darren." Any more, and the man would simply shoot Darren to shut him up. Charlie had no doubts on that matter. "Just do as he says."

"But, Mr. Math Professor," Nancy objected, "it's not nice to take off your clothes, except in your bedroom. And then you put on pajamas. That's what you're supposed to do."

"Take off blouse," the man insisted, lifting the rifle. "Now."

"Take off your clothes, Nancy," Charlie instructed her, adding under his breath, "and be slow about it."

* * *

"I don't see any blood, but I don't see Don." Megan straightened up from examining the ground. "The Suburban is trashed."

"Don walked away from it," David insisted. "Look. Here's his footprints. Evenly spaced, straight line."

"He was running," Megan thought. "The distance between the prints is longer than a single stride. Someone was chasing him."

"Krikov," was David's opinion, "and fast and close. Don didn't have time to pull the HTR from the back, which means that he doesn't have his rifle. All he's got is his handgun. What does Krikov have?"

"Anything he damn well pleases, since he's a gun runner," Megan said grimly. She automatically felt for her handgun in her own holster. "Let's take a moment, David, and pull our own HTR's out. I have a feeling we may need some heavy firepower."

* * *

"You," and the man indicated Charlie, "rape her."

"What?" Charlie couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was the man mangling English?

He wasn't. He pointed the rifle at Charlie. "Make look like orgy. Or I shoot right now," he added.

Their clothes were on the ground, three naked and shivering people menaced by a man with a rifle. It was summer but it was high in the mountains, and the summer's sunlight wasn't enough to compensate for the cold air.

The gunman had chosen his site well, some few hundred yards away from the road, far enough that it couldn't be seen and there was a boulder creating a natural wall between where they were and the road. It was a grove of birches, the white bark spiraling up the tall trunks to branch out into a leafy canopy, with smaller bushes of indeterminate parentage surrounding and enclosing the area. Nancy had carefully folded her clothing, even her brassiere, positioning the clothing on top of one of the bushes as if the bush were her bureau back in her home in L.A. Both men, less fastidious, had draped theirs over the boulder on the opposite side of the grove, as much to say that one side belonged to the men and the other to the ladies.

Humiliating. That was the only word for it: humiliating. Charlie kept his eyes averted from the distaff member of the group, saw that Darren—his face beet red—was doing the same. Darren's hands were trying to hide his evidence.

Not so the gunman. The man was eying Nancy thoughtfully, teeth nipping hungrily at his lower lip, contemplating what he had in front of him, in his power. Charlie could see the momentary desire at war with common sense in the man's face, and saw common sense win out. The man wanted this to look like an orgy to throw off the locals who would discover this scene, and leaving a heavy helping of his own DNA behind in a dead body would lead those locals straight to whoever the man was; clearly not something that this man wanted to do. He needed to delay the pursuit, not add another crime to his own list.

"Do her," the man demanded of Charlie, rightly figuring that the mathematician alone would understand what the gunman was trying to say. "Give her good time. Or I shoot all three. Die now."

Right. Complete the scene, make it look like two men dragging off a woman into the woods. It wouldn't stand up to scrutiny for long, but it would be long enough for this man to make a clean getaway. Any local cop who found it would take his time getting a Forensics unit here, thinking that it was just some low-lifes from L.A. having a good time, and it would take another day before the information meandered its way to the FBI.

Not only would there be three dead bodies here, but there would be a fourth, somewhere almost a mile away. Without help, Charlie knew, his brother Don was a dead man. Charlie only hoped that Don hadn't already bled his life away into the ground.

Charlie couldn't help it; he looked at Nancy. Not at anything below the neck—he couldn't bring himself to do that—but at her face. At her eyes; scared, pleading hazel eyes. Eyes that had once looked into Reuben Magenbrot's eyes and found love. Eyes that deserved to once again find love, somewhere in a better place. She shivered, and not merely from the cold.

Charlie knew what the man wanted him to do. He wanted Charlie to take Nancy here, in front of Darren, on the cold and unyielding forest floor. He wanted Charlie to make her last moments on Earth the worst of her life. The gunman wanted to make her last moments of life occur in the arms of a man she didn't know, force her to give herself in the most intimate fashion in front of her killer. Looking into those terrified hazel eyes, Charlie realized that Nancy was a true innocent. That she and Ben had never been intimate, that the two of them had listened to Meredith and the others in the household when they were told not to indulge themselves until they were married. Charlie wondered if she even understood what the gunman meant.

This would be her first—and her last.

Charlie straightened himself up. He turned away from Nancy to face the man with the gun. He could buy the three of them a few more moments of life, or he could spare Nancy the most degrading experience of her life—and of his. Either way, they were going to die.

"No. I won't."

The man shrugged. "Too bad for you." He lifted the rifle to his shoulder.


	22. Brightest Crayon 22

A shot rang out.

Both Megan's and David's heads jerked up, recognizing the sound immediately.

"Single shot," David snapped. "It must be Krikov."

Megan had her cell out. "Reeves. Notify the en route back-up: shots fired. Consider the suspect armed and dangerous. Set up road blocks at either end of Route Two. Don't let anyone in or out of this area without a thorough search; we have a potential homicide of a Federal agent." She didn't need to tell them who the Federal agent was. Every available FBI field agent was on their way to this area, determined to find Don Eppes and Vasily Krikov.

"This way." David moved toward the sound of the gun shot, breaking into a fast lope.

* * *

_Crack!_

A shot rang out.

Charlie jerked, realized that he hadn't been hit. He immediately turned to the other two, to find out who had been killed first. At this distance, there was no missing the target.

Nancy was unhurt. So was Darren.

_So who was hit?_

The gunman sagged. A red patch blossomed on his chest, just over his heart. The rifle clattered to the ground, followed by the man himself.

_Who…?_

Don Eppes appeared from around the huge boulder, clutching onto the rocky face to keep from falling to the ground. His handgun dangled from his fingers, also in danger of falling.

"Don!" Charlie darted forward, to catch his brother before the man hit the dirt. He seized Don under the shoulders, struggling with his brother's solid weight.

"Gun," Don wheezed, by which Charlie deciphered that Don wanted him to take the handgun before it struck the ground and misfired. "Check…the…bo—"

It was as if a string snapped inside somewhere. Don went limp, his head falling onto Charlie's shoulder.

Too heavy. Charlie struggled to lower Don to the ground, wrestled him around so that his head wouldn't hit anything.

Not yet time to let down his guard. Charlie removed the gun from Don's fingers curled around it, and had to work to get the gun away from his brother. It was second nature for the agent to hang onto his weapon, no matter what the circumstances, no matter awake or unconscious. Both Eppes men ended up on the ground, Charlie's bare backside on a thick rug of discarded pine needles and Don's head nestled against his chest.

But… "Darren," Charlie commanded, "get the gun away from that man. Shove it away with your foot."

"I…I'm afraid, Mr. Math Professor."

"I'll do it." Nancy darted forward to pull the rifle away from the gunman's hand and out of reach. She tugged it into the bushes. Once there, she noticed her clothing and grabbed it, putting it on in a humiliated instant. Thus prompted, Darren too hustled into his skivvies, the pants and shirt following.

_Now what?_ A dead body, a wounded Federal agent/brother, a stolen formula in his pants still draped over a bush; Charlie wanted to just sit there, his brother in his arms, and ask someone else to fix things because he was tired of things going wrong. What else could happen?

But his brother _was_ there, wounded, in Charlie's arms, potentially dying. There wasn't any time to waste. Charlie took a deep breath. "Help me get him into the SUV," he ordered. "We have to get help." Leaving a dead body behind wasn't the best FBI practice, but Charlie was a great believer in priorities and right now getting help for his brother was of far greater importance than making certain that the dead body didn't spring back to life and take a hike.

Wait; was he dead? Had the gunman actually been killed by Don's shot, or was he expiring as Charlie watched? Was Charlie going to have to load a second wounded body into the SUV and drive to the nearest hospital?

One way to find out: "Check the body," Charlie ordered. "Make sure that he's dead."

Both Nancy and Darren drew back. Nancy had apparently reached the limits of her bravery. Guns she could handle but a dead body posed a far greater threat. If he wanted the body checked, then Charlie was going to have to do it himself.

Charlie decided that he didn't want to waste time checking the body. There didn't seem to be any breathing going on; that would have to do.

_"Federal Agents!"_

Charlie jerked his head up. "Megan?"

It came out as much of a squeak as anything else, but Charlie was too exhausted to care. With a dead body on the ground and a bleeding brother in his arms, Charlie simply was grateful that Don's team was there.

Not so Megan and David.

"Charlie?" Megan blinked, keeping her gun trained on the dead body. "Charlie, what are you doing here?"

"With Darren and Nancy?" David approached the body, and knelt to feel for a pulse. "Dead," he reported. "What happened here, Charlie? How's Don?"

Megan, reassured about the gunman, squatted beside Charlie, feeling for Don's neck. "Don's alive," she said, before Charlie could summon the energy to tell them the details. "His pulse is fast."

"Shock," David nodded with the terse verbal shorthand that the agents shared in times of stress. He glanced up at the trees. "No way we can get a chopper in here to air-lift him out. I'll bring my car closer."

"We parked too far away. Let's use the SUV," Megan suggested. "It's closer and it's evidence; we'll have to bring it in anyway." She briefly looked over the two Better Day employees, made a rapid deployment decision. "I'll stay with these two, and the body. You take Don back with Charlie. Call ahead; see if the chopper can meet you in a parking lot somewhere. Air-lifting him over the traffic in L.A. will save a lot of time." _Time that Don needs very badly_, she didn't add.

Charlie heard it anyway. "Megan?"

"You help get Don into the SUV," Megan told him, gentling her tone. "We'll put him in the back seat. You'll hold him there, make sure that he doesn't fall off of the seat." One corner of her mouth quirked upward. "And, Charlie? You might want to put your clothes back on."

The red made it all the way down to the mathematician's chest before fading out.

* * *

"Where're we goin'?" Don slurred, trying to open his eyes. "Chuck?"

"It's okay, Don. We've got you." Charlie, already in the back seat of the SUV, slipped his arms underneath Don's shoulders and lifted. He wasn't a big man but neither was Don and Charlie was motivated. At the moment, Charlie would have managed two tons of cement to slide Don into the back seat and onto Charlie's lap. "Don't try to move."

"Krikov…!"

"It's okay, Don," Charlie repeated urgently. He pushed Don back down, not that it took much effort. Charlie had never seen his brother this weak. The heavy white dressing that Megan had taped over the bullet wound was already turning bright red. Charlie bit his lip. "You got him. He's dead."

"Dead?" Don was having a hard time processing information in his brain. "How?" He let his eyelids close.

They were going to close anyway, Charlie decided. "Don't worry about it, Don," he whispered. "We'll talk when you're better."

"Good." Don was losing ground fast. "Good…"

Charlie couldn't help it; he touched the spot on Don's neck where the pulse ought to be—and whole-heartedly panicked when he couldn't find it. "David!"

"Right here, Charlie." David found the correct spot in an instant. "He's okay, Charlie. Let's get him out of here." He tossed his cell to Charlie, and fingered the Bluetooth already positioned in his ear. "When I tell you, hit speed dial six. That's to Headquarters." He swung into the driver's seat. "Megan, you going to be all right?"

"Get moving," she told him, Nancy and Darren watching them wide-eyed. Darren's mouth hung open at the events moving so quickly around him. "I'll handle the chain of evidence. Get Don some help."

"I'll be in touch." David revved the motor and eased the SUV back onto the road—and then took off.

Charlie's admiration for the skills of the team that he routinely consulted for took another leap upward. The curves of the road flew smoothly by, and the straightaways became opportunities to demonstrate how the sound barrier could be broken. _And David doesn't consider himself a particularly skillful driver_, Charlie remembered. He didn't care. What mattered now was getting Don to medical care. Charlie shoved his feet against whatever was solid and braced himself—and hung onto Don.

David didn't even look back. "Hit speed dial six, Charlie," he tossed over his shoulder, waiting for the cell signal to get picked up by a tower. "Todd? Sinclair. West on Route Two. Patch me through to the bird." There was a pause, while the connections were made. "Chopper Three? Sinclair. West on Route Two. You got a place where you can set down? I'm still a good ten miles east of town." Pause, while the pilot apparently looked around from a bird's eye view.

"Chopper Three? You there?" David swore. "Damn mountains. Charlie, hit speed six again." Another pause. "Try it again. The signal keeps cutting out. How many bars do we have?"

Charlie looked at the cell. "None." It wasn't what either of them wanted to hear. Charlie tightened his grip across Don's chest, keeping the man from sliding off of Charlie's lap and onto the floor of the SUV.

"How's Don?"

_White-faced. Unconscious_. Charlie's fingers moved of their own volition to the pulse point, almost collapsing himself with relief at finding a faint and rapid heartbeat. "Still breathing."

"Best we can hope for," David muttered under his breath. "See if you can get the chopper back for me; speed six. And look out the window for the chopper," he added with a healthy dose of sarcasm made sour by fear for his team leader. "We've got a better chance of seeing it than talking to it." He slowed down for another curve.

Don licked his lips, and opened his eyes. He blinked, suddenly coherent. He frowned. "Charlie? What's going on?"

"We're getting you to help."

"Oh." Then—"Krikov?"

"He's not going anywhere," Charlie said uneasily, seeing all too clearly in his mind the picture of the body sprawled on the ground, blood leaking out of the chest. His brother had blood leaking out of him too, Charlie reminded himself. The bandage that Megan had applied was looking more and more red.

"Okay," Don said clearly and closed his eyes, content to simply lie there.

"Any bars yet on the service?" David pushed in.

Charlie, recalled to his duties, looked at the cell. "One. Dialing," he said, before David could tell him to do it.

"Never mind," David broke in. "There's the chopper. I see the parking lot that he's headed for, that one by the shopping center. Good thing the mall is deserted," he muttered, not expecting Charlie to answer. "Hope somebody called ahead to let the owners know. They did," he answered himself, slowing the SUV to roll around the corner. "There are the local cops, moving everybody back." David rolled down the window, flashing his badge. "FBI. We're the guys you're expecting," he greeted the cop. "I'm going to need one of you to monitor this vehicle for chain of evidence while I go with my team leader."

"Got it. Yo, Doug!" the local man hollered. "He's here. This is the one."

David eased the SUV through the crowd and the cars that no one had been able to move, edging up to the chopper.

Charlie lost track of what was going on. One moment Don was lying across Charlie's lap, the next Charlie was on the chopper, David next to him with medics blocking his view of his brother. That might be a good thing, Charlie thought grimly to himself. From the sounds of things, Charlie didn't really want to know what the medics were doing. 'Saving Don's life' seemed a good enough title to cover the whole affair.

David gripped Charlie's arm. "They know what they're doing," he shouted over the noise of the rotors above. "We've got the tough part: waiting."


	23. Brightest Crayon 23

Nothing to do but wait. And then wait some more.

David had scored them a private room in the hospital, speaking briefly to someone in charge and then shepherding Charlie into a small room. The chairs weren't comfortable, but they represented a chance to sit down in a place where someone wasn't holding a loaded gun. Sunlight poured in through the sterilized windows; was it really only mid-afternoon? After everything that had happened, it _deserved_ to be at least midnight.

It wasn't. David walked back in, a couple of sandwiches in his hands, and it was only then that Charlie realized how long it had been since he'd eaten Nancy's soggy toast with jam. His stomach rumbled, giving him away.

David handed him one of the sandwiches. "Anything?"

Charlie looked away, once again not hungry. "Nothing. Nothing since they said they were taking him into surgery."

"It's not bad, Charlie," David tried to reassure him. "The ER doc said that the bullet went through him, didn't look like it punctured anything vital. It's just a matter of cleaning it out and stitching him back up."

"Then what's taking so long?"

"It hasn't been very long, Charlie. Only an hour. That's not long."

"It feels like it," Charlie grumbled. "There was all that time in the emergency department, before they took him into surgery." He unwrapped the sandwich. If David went to the trouble of getting it for him, then Charlie needed to show that he appreciated the effort. The first bite awoke his hunger, and he took a second.

"You get hold of your dad?" David was half way through his own sandwich, wolfing it down with the experience of a man trained to take what and when he can when it counted and before it once again hit the fan.

"Got his voice mail." Gulp. Swig on the water bottle. "I left him a message. I expect he'll panic when he hears it, and be on the next plane back home."

"Good." David finished his sandwich in record time and pulled out a small notepad from the pocket in his jacket. "You up to telling me what happened? Like, what you were doing up on that mountain? We thought you were at CalSci. Where you were supposed to be," David pushed.

"Long story." Charlie didn't feel like telling it. That didn't matter. He'd be telling it anyway.

"I'm not going anywhere. Not for a while." David waited, easing back in his chair.

Charlie sighed, and looked down at his feet. The sandwich impacted the view, and he took a small nibble just to delay what needed to be told. "It started last night." It seemed like a week ago. "Darren and Nancy were waiting for me by my car. I came out of my office, and they were there."

"Why? What did they say to you?"

"Not much." Charlie launched into the story. "They thought that I could solve what was going on and what had happened to Magenbrot, so they took me up to their cabin in the woods."

David frowned. "What cabin in the woods, Charlie? We checked; Gideon doesn't own anything up that way."

Charlie shrugged. "I don't know what to say, David. They knew where they were going. They'd been there many times before." What he didn't want to say was that the pair had drugged him to ensure his cooperation. He knew that they didn't understand the implications of what they had done; they simply wanted to solve the mystery of what had happened to their friend. Charlie hurried past that part. "It was a six bedroom cabin with three stories. Believe me, I can show it to you. I walked out of there. My car ran out of gas."

David looked skeptical. "A Prius? Out of gas?"

"Yeah. Ironic, isn't it?" Charlie found that he really didn't want to tell his story. It would only get Nancy and Darren into trouble. With their employer going downhill, what would happen to them? 'Out of a job' was only the beginning. "They showed me around the place. Magenbrot had—" he broke off at David's hand signal.

Perfect timing: a man in scrubs and a tired expression walked in. "Mr. Eppes?"

"Right here." Charlie was on his feet in a flash, David behind him. "How's my brother?"

"Going to be fine," the doctor reassured him. "He'll be our guest for a couple of days, but recovery should be fine." His glance flickered over David; clearly not family.

"FBI," David identified himself.

"Patient is a suspect?" Suspiciously.

"Federal agent," David corrected.

"Good." The doctor's face cleared. "He'll get our finest care."

"Can we see him?"

The doctor nodded. "Another hour. He's still in post-op, coming out of anesthesia, and then he'll need to be transferred to a room. Excuse me, miss?" he asked as Megan walked in. "Are you Mr. Eppes' wife?"

Megan smiled tightly. "Hardly. Special Agent Reeves, FBI." She didn't bother to pull out her badge.

The doctor didn't mind. He sighed. "Just keep the number of visitors down. My patient needs his rest."

Megan waited until the doctor had left the room before moving on to quiz the others. "I take it this means that Don going to be okay?"

"Couple days here, and he should be ready to escape," David told her. "Your side? Was it Vasily Krikov?"

"Positive ID," Megan said. "Forensics got a fast match on the fingerprints. One less piece of slime in the world." She let her gaze slide over to Charlie. "The question is: where was he going? He wasn't trying to lure Don up into the mountains. There would have been no point in that, not for one local FBI agent. Krikov had to have had a purpose for going there."

"Got an answer," David said. He jerked his thumb at Charlie. "'Mr. Math Professor' here got an invite to a cabin in the woods."

"Really?" Megan's attention perked up. "We must have been on the right track, David. Gideon probably put it into someone else's name, for tax purposes if nothing else." She turned back to Charlie. "Do you know where it is?"

"I can _walk_ there," Charlie answered ruefully, looking mournfully at his feet. "My blisters can point the way."

Megan winked. "We'll take the car next time." She pulled out her cell, then checked herself. "Not in a hospital. David, we need to move on this. I'll see if I can pull the address out of a hat. You follow up on our friends from the DEA. Let's go outside for cell service. Charlie, you'll be okay in here, waiting for Don?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Charlie said, emphasizing his point by sitting back down in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs. "Except to Don's room. When they let me."

* * *

"Not here." Megan led David to another quiet area of the hospital parking lot, away from the small 'smoking kiosk' where cigarette butts littered the ground and stank up the air. She pulled open her cell. "I'll handle the address for the cabin that those two took Charlie to; we'll want to search the place to see if we can find anything from Lavozzi Industries. If that's where Krikov was headed, then that was where Bartholomew Gideon hid the formula. Getting that information back into secure hands needs to take priority," she said. "You see about getting a warrant to pull the cell phone records for our DEA friends."

"Yeah." David's chuckle had no humor in it. "Don called it right. Gideon found out that we were getting close, and he spooked. There's no other explanation for why he suddenly found it necessary to take a stroll yesterday morning to meet with Krikov. He found out that we were getting close, and he alerted Krikov to go pick up the information before we closed in. Now who do you think might have tipped him off?" he added sarcastically. He thought for a moment. "I'm also going to make sure that Gideon was picked up for questioning, and his bank account and financial data subpoenaed. Don't want him to run, either."

"Sounds good." Megan tossed a look up toward the second floor of the hospital. It was the opposite side of where Don was, and where Charlie waited, but it was the best she could do and it signaled her intent. "We still need to get the rest of Charlie's story. I'm assuming that you haven't had the opportunity?"

"Nope. Little busy getting Don here, and Charlie has been pacing around like a hamster on speed. How about the Bobsey twins? They tell you anything?"

Megan shook her head. "Darren was almost incoherent, and Nancy only a little bit better. It seems that they hijacked Charlie and made him go up to that cabin. Then Nancy fed him breakfast, and Charlie found a letter that Magenbrot started to write, something about Gideon, and then I couldn't get anymore out of them except that Krikov apparently was going to try to delay the pursuit by 'arranging' his own little orgy scene up on the mountain with the three of them."

"It would have worked," David observed. "If the locals had found the bodies, it would have been several hours before they tried to identify them; several hours for Krikov to arrange to leave the country. There was no way for Krikov to know that we were close on Don's tail. The locals would have thought that it was just a little party gone sour and started looking for drugs and alcohol."

"Let's get things moving. I want to get back up to Charlie and find out what Magenbrot's letter said. I have a funny feeling that it's more important than anything else we've uncovered." Megan dialed, and put her cell phone to her ear.

* * *

It didn't take long for Don to fall back asleep. Hospital personnel had gently moved him into the pristine white-linened bed, adjusted the various plastic lines bringing various supplements within easy reach of parts of his body not generally accustomed to receiving them—veins, for one thing—and had left Charlie alone with his brother. Don had woken up briefly during the move, said something that Charlie chose to interpret as 'hello' but in reality was something far less polite, and then gone back to sleep before Charlie could say anything back to him.

Charlie studied his brother, watching the chest slowly rise and fall, seeing the white bandage slowly darken in one spot as blood gathered beneath it. They'd said that something like that would happen, that it was normal for some of the blood to leak out to seal the hole underneath the dressing in the skin. The hospital gown didn't fit, and that too didn't surprise Charlie. There was only one intravenous line dripping fluids into Don's arm, but they had made up for that lack by dangling no fewer than four additional small bags from the pole along side the main larger one, each waiting their turn to empty themselves through the IV. Even from here Charlie could smell the plastic from the tubing that channeled oxygen to his brother's nose.

_Luck_. Incredible, fantastic luck. Luck that Charlie had happened onto Don to help him escape from the killer. Luck that Don had caught up to Charlie and the other two just as the gunman had taken aim at Charlie's chest. Luck that Don continued to breathe all through the helicopter flight to this medical facility. Charlie would be grateful for that luck.

Charlie looked up as someone entered the room, but it was only one of the DEA agents, the one called Lomb. Charlie ordered his face to freeze, to not give away his feelings. Not that Charlie didn't want to see Lomb, it's just that there were people that he wanted to see _more_. Megan and David would have been welcome at the moment. One of the doctors, saying that Don could look forward to going home soon, would have been another.

At least it wasn't that senior DEA agent, what was his name? Bausch? _That_ one Charlie really didn't like. It was Bausch who had pushed his face into Charlie's, before Don put together an airtight alibi for his brother. _Something else to thank you for, brother mine_. No, this one was one of the junior agents, one that Charlie hadn't had much contact with, only meeting with him across tables in FBI conference rooms to discuss the case. He looked like the others: eminently forgettable with short cropped dirty blond hair, medium height, non-descript eyes. Charlie was looking right at the man and couldn't figure out whether those eyes were blue or green. Didn't really matter; this case was all but over. The gunman—Krikov, David had called him, with a certain satisfaction by which Charlie deciphered that the FBI was well pleased that the dead man was no longer doing whatever it was that he did—was gone and Tony LaVozzi's secret formula would be safe.

Speaking of which, the paper that Charlie had found in the cabin earlier today was burning a hole in his back pocket. With all the excitement and terror of getting Don to medical care, Charlie hadn't had the opportunity to finish sharing his story with David, and remembering the formula in his back pocket was part of that story.

However, that formula _was_ classified, and national security, and it was entitled to a little more respect and guardianship than one toasted mathematician. Preferably it should go to someone legally authorized and empowered to carry a gun, someone like the DEA agent standing here in the room with him. Charlie would have rather have given it to David—_hm. Maybe I should wait until he and Megan get back here?_—but Agent Lomb was present, and so was the formula.

_Nah. I'm going to wait for David and Megan. Security can wait_.

"Professor Eppes," Lomb greeted him, with the just the right amount of warmth: professional courtesy, concern for Charlie's brother-the-fellow-federal-agent, and coolness for someone that he'd once considered a suspect in a case. Charlie was impressed with the amount of details the man was able to put into a single salutation. "I'm glad you're safe. How is Agent Eppes?"

"The doctors said that surgery went well," Charlie replied, relieved to be able to say that. "He's going to be okay."

"Glad to hear it." Lomb swung into the real focus of his interest. "I spoke with the two Make A Better Day employees; they say that they took you to their cabin in the woods."

"That's right." Charlie blinked; Lomb apparently knew the details of the manhunt. That made sense. After all, the DEA agents were part of the team; Don himself had invited the trio to participate since the DEA had already been working on it for a couple of months. Obviously someone had filled them in on Don and Charlie's little adventure, since Charlie hadn't seen any one of the three at the crime scene on the mountain. With Colby and now Don both injured, the team was getting a bit slender on manpower. Megan must have asked Lomb to handle the questioning of Nancy and Darren. Lomb must be here now to report up to Megan. "Are you looking for Megan or David? Agents Reeves and Sinclair?" he amended.

Lomb ignored the question. "They said that you found something that Magenbrot wrote."

"You could say that. Magenbrot was getting worried," Charlie told him. "He tried to write a note, left it in the cabin at some time in the recent past."

Lomb nodded, as if expecting something of that nature. "Anything else?" Carefully casual.

_Why casual?_ Charlie went on. "Yes. I found a copy of the classified formula that Tony LaVozzi developed, something that shouldn't be seen outside of Lavozzi Industries. I have it here. I kept it, to be safe." He reached back to pull the papers out of his back pocket. _As long as Lomb was asking for it..._

"Let me see it." Lomb held out his hand for the papers, just as David and Megan walked back in.

The temperature in the room plunged without benefit of air conditioning. All three agents stiffened, and Charlie couldn't figure out why. He started to unfold the papers that he'd brought from the cabin, preparatory to smoothing out the creases. _What's going on here?_

"Agent Lomb," Megan greeted the agent, carefully noncommittal. "I didn't expect to see you here—"

If Charlie had had one of Larry Fleinhardt's specialized timing devices, he could have timed the event in nano-seconds, which would have been a good thing because the scene deserved to be observed in those slight increments.

During the first nano-second, Megan and David's hands both inched back nervously toward the handguns in their respective shoulder holsters.

The second nano-second was more alarming: DEA Agent Lomb, more certain of what was about to transpire, slipped out a switchblade from his pocket. Had Agent Lomb been better positioned, Charlie was sure, then Lomb would have used his own handgun for his next move. But the handgun was located under Lomb's left arm where the right hand couldn't snatch it effectively, and Lomb was using the third nano-second and his left arm to grab Charlie around the neck and drag him back into both a choke hold and a shield to protect Lomb from the two FBI agents. Charlie's own body prevented Agent Lomb from reaching Lomb's handgun.

The fourth nano-second brought the switchblade to Charlie's neck.

"Don't move!" Lomb snarled, scraping a sliver of blood from the skin under Charlie's jaw. "Hold it right there!"

Both Megan and David halted, handguns held in two hands and trained on the target. Unfortunately, Charlie realized, the target stood directly behind Charlie himself. Any FBI bullet trying to stop Lomb had an even greater chance of ending up lodged in Charlie himself. He gulped, the switchblade rubbing uncomfortably against his throat.

On the other hand, Charlie realized with dismay, this was national security. There was a paper in Charlie's hand at this very instant with a secret formula that couldn't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. Despite the circumstances, Charlie had to stifle the insane urge to giggle; he was sounding like a bad James Bond movie.

This, however, was very real.

"Give it up," Megan warned, her gun still in a line with Lomb's chest—and Charlie's chest between them. "There's no way out. There are too many people around, and the lobby is filled with our people. And yours, who are going to be just as eager to stop you, Agent Lomb, if not more. Lower your weapon, and you'll walk out of here alive."

Lomb jerked the knife a bit higher under Charlie's chin. It hurt; Charlie could feel a trickle of blood dribble down his neck, and he yelped more in shock than in pain.

"That's not going to happen," Lomb said, very much in control. "Here's what _is_ going to happen, Reeves. The two of you are going to back away, very slowly, so I can see what you're doing. You, Reeves, you're going to tell all of your people to clear the hall so that Mr. Nobel Prize and I can leave this place without him getting killed."

"There is no—" Charlie started to say.

Lomb slid the knife along the skin, widening the slice. More blood oozed forth, along with a healthy helping of fire along the slice. Charlie got the message.

David finished the statement for him. "There is no Nobel Prize for math." He eased himself away from Megan, trying to widen the angle of fire.

Lomb caught it. "Ah-ah, Sinclair. Don't try it. Both of you: I want to see baby steps toward the door. _Now_." Another jerk of Lomb's arm, forcing Charlie's jaw upward, exposing the jugular. "You hang onto that paper, Eppes. I need that a lot more than I do you."

"Back off, David." Megan made the command decision. "We're playing it your way, Lomb."

"Good." Lomb pulled Charlie around so that he could continue to watch the two FBI agents. His back legs bumped up against the hospital bed containing the sleeping Don Eppes, and he stopped. "I want a car outside, fully gassed up and ready to go."

"At these gas prices?" David complained, more to have something to say than anything else.

Lomb appreciated the joke. The knife pressed in on Charlie's throat. "Why do you think I want _you_ to get it for me?" He darted his eyes between the two FBI agents, never letting the blade waver from his hostage. "Here's what's going to happen: Mr. Nobel Prize and I are going to walk downstairs and get into that car. We're going to drive out of here and disappear, and none of you are going to follow."

Charlie cleared his throat. The knife felt entirely too close for comfort. "There is no Nobel Prize in math."

"Shut up," Lomb told Charlie. He turned back to the FBI agents. "When I feel safe, I'll release him. If I don't think there's any way out," he threatened, "then I'll have no reason to keep Eppes alive. Clear?" He tried to move back, in order to keep both agents and the door in view, and bumped up once again against the hospital bed. The intravenous line swung gently behind him, the bags dangling from the hook hanging from the ceiling.

Megan was caving. "You've got it, Lomb." She put her handgun up, making it obvious that shooting through 'Mr. Nobel Prize' wasn't an option. "David, stand down. Go outside; clear the hall. Call the director and tell him we need a car out front."

"Megan—"

"No other choice, David." Megan stood firm. "The formula isn't worth Charlie's life."

"Good decision, Reeves," Lomb approved. "Do as the lady says, Sinclair."

"All right." Reluctantly, David too took down his gun and started to slowly back toward the door of the hospital room.

Lomb started to edge forward, pushing Charlie where he wanted him with the switchblade still giving the mathematician too close a shave.

Then Charlie felt Lomb stop. He felt him jerk slightly, then stop. Lomb froze.

The voice was harsh and sore. It hurt just to listen to it.

"There is no Nobel Prize in math, Lomb."

It was Don Eppes. It was Don Eppes, with Agent Lomb's gun in his hand, the hand with an intravenous catheter taped to it, and the gun was stuck into Lomb's ribs. The rest of Don was still lying on the hospital bed, but the hand that had tugged Lomb's gun out of its holster had the weapon digging into Lomb's side.

"Try it," Don invited, "and you'll be dead before Charlie."

It was over. Megan and David snapped their guns back into position, David moving forward to relieve Lomb of the knife and tug the agent's hands behind him for handcuffs. Megan took Lomb's gun from Don, allowing the wounded agent to fall back against the pillow.

The FBI team leader put on an expression of half-disgust, half-satisfaction.

"Can't even stop working after getting shot. Thanks, guys."


	24. Brightest Crayon 24

"I hope it's healthy pizza," Alan Eppes observed wryly, welcoming Megan and David in with arms bearing large and flat boxes with steam rising from them. "Colby, how are you feeling?"

"Much better, thanks," Colby grinned, his arm in a sling and the rest of him dressed in off-duty comfortable clothing. "Not up to driving yet, not according to the docs, but these two hijacked me and here I am."

"Come in, come in," Alan invited. "Don, they're here," he called to the interior.

"Hey, man, don't get up," David protested, leading the way.

"Wasn't planning on it." Don didn't move from the sofa, didn't even try to close up the half open robe loosely belted across his waist. The dark fabric tried valiantly to cover the white bandage at his waist, failing to do more than a quarter of the job. Don didn't mind. In fact, shaving had also not been on today's agenda, with dark stubble making it clear that five o'clock had come and gone yesterday as well as today. There was a tall glass of something liquid sitting on the coffee table in front of him with a small vial of white pills that would, Colby had no doubt, fetch a hefty price on the black market. Colby didn't mind; there was a similar small vial riding in his pocket that ensured that Colby too wouldn't be driving a car or operating heavy machinery for the next several days.

Don waved an arm. "Take a load off." He almost leaned forward to sniff the pizzas, then thought better of it. "I hope somebody brought onions. None of that pepperoni crap. I've got my health to consider."

"Hey, I like pepperoni crap," Colby objected, easing himself into the second most comfortable chair he could find with one hand, since his team leader already occupied the first. He re-adjusted the sling on the other arm. "And sausage, and hamburg, and—"

"Your arteries are going to be clogged within three years," Megan told him unsympathetically.

Don changed the subject to what he was really interested in. "You guys get the reports finished up?"

"Almost," David said. He grinned, white teeth splitting his face. "All except for yours, Don."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to wait for that," Don grinned. "The docs won't sign my release until Monday. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it."

"No fair," Colby grumbled. "They gave me desk duty." He took a ferocious bite of pizza. "I hate riding a desk."

"Next time, get shot in the gut instead of the shoulder," Don told him with a total lack of sympathy.

"Thanks. I'll be sure to remind the next sniper I see."

"So fill me in on the details," Don requested. "I knew one of the DEA guys was dirty, but I was thinking that it was Bausch."

"Nope. Lomb," Megan said cheerfully. "Agent Bausch was obnoxious—and he's going back for a 'refresher course' on witness interrogation techniques as well as a few sessions with the DEA's psychotherapy department—but he wasn't dirty. It was all Lomb. The DEA cameras that never caught anything? Lomb would notify Bartholomew Gideon of when they were going up. Gideon would slip a heavy duty magnet into Reuben Magenbrot's tool case so that the digital picture would get erased whenever Magenbrot was near."

"So this whole thing was never about drugs," Don realized. "It was always about stealing national secrets."

David nodded. "It started with Bartholomew Gideon. He realized right away that he wasn't going to able to keep up with the lifestyle he'd chosen, not when the company was trying to foot the bill for some high end real estate for all of the employees. Department accountants are delving through the Make A Better Day books right now. The company is broke, and may even take some of their creditors with them."

"So Gideon comes up with this way to steal the formula from Lavozzi Industries."

"It was really a brilliant plan, Don," Megan put in. "Gideon realizes that he looks fairly similar to Magenbrot; both medium height and weight, both blond. So Gideon forges a second Lavozzi ID for Magenbrot, only this one has Gideon's picture on it. Gideon goes in through the back door which doesn't require swiping the ID with a bar code, only a signature which nobody looks very carefully at. With so many people going through, the guards—mostly part-timers and a variety of others working the back door—never learn to recognize most of the contract Better Day workers. Gideon slips through and plants cocaine into the desks of people who have paid for it through their contracts with Better Day providing residential service."

"Of course," Don acknowledged. "And that's where Lomb came in, I'm assuming. He would ensure an adequate supply of coke."

"Right." David took over the story. "One of them—both Lomb and Gideon are accusing the other—one of them realizes that they can 'persuade' some of the Lavozzi employees to put a piece of the formula into a drawer in their desks. None of the Lavozzi people realize what's happening; a small piece is worthless without the rest. They're over a barrel, and they cave. They don't realize that others are providing other pieces to make up the whole."

"Which is how Gideon and Lomb acquire the entire formula. Lomb contacts Krikov and says, 'make me an offer.'"

"Exactly." Megan smiled grimly. "Lomb had the black market connections that Gideon lacked. When Lomb thinks, courtesy of your little 'meeting' the other day, that Gideon is close to being identified as the person entering Lavozzi under a false ID, he calls him and tells him to cut and run. Lomb, of course, didn't realize that we already knew that Gideon was guilty and had him under surveillance. Gideon calls Krikov and arranges for a meet, planning to get the money and flee the country. Krikov, by the way, was Colby's sniper. Damn good shot with a rifle. You know the rest from there."

"Not really," Don contradicted. "What about the cabin in the country? How did Charlie get up there? Why didn't we know about it?"

"The cabin was in Nancy's name, which is why it didn't show up when we ran the first search for properties," David informed him. "That's how Gideon was hiding both money and debt. Most of the people in the L.A. house that Colby and I went to are the legal owners of Better Day properties and never even knew it." He grinned. "I understand that our accountants are working with the D.A.'s office to regularize some of the ownership issues. Nancy and Darren may turn out to own some very valuable property with no way for Gideon to get it back."

Don grinned. That was good news. "Okay, but why did they take Charlie there? Walk me through that."

"Magenbrot again," David said. "He realized that Gideon was there, and somehow found out that Gideon was using his name. He got hold of the formula somehow—that part wasn't clear, but we think he may have sneaked it from Gideon's own bag when he saw the boss there—and stashed it in the cabin in the hills. He told Nancy and Darren that if anything ever happened to him, that they should look in the cabin, and talk to Charlie. Magenbrot always thought of Charlie as a genius who could figure anything out. In Magenbrot's mind, if you believe Nancy and I do, Charlie would know everything." He shrugged. "I talked to the D.A. The kidnapping thing? She's going to let Nancy and Darren off with a slap on the wrist. According to Charlie, they hadn't a clue as to what they were really doing. They just wanted to clear Magenbrot's name. Charlie's good with that."

"Meredith Aarons, the woman at the house," Colby put in, "she's clean. She's good. She didn't know what was going on, didn't know that her own name was on the deed to the house here in L.A. She's going to keep on in her role as 'den mother' for a while, at least until things are straightened out. Gideon really did have the right idea for people helping people, just didn't know when to stop."

"Gideon broke, once we pulled him in," Megan continued. She grinned. "We just gave Agent Trainee Rod D'Armante his first major bust, and Gideon's been talking non-stop. Gideon was there the night of Magenbrot's death, and he was responsible. Magenbrot had seen him once before, possibly twice, and Gideon was able to cover up, but the last time Magenbrot apparently confronted Gideon. They argued, Gideon threatened him, and Magenbrot ran. Gideon chased him, and Reuben Magenbrot slipped and fell down the stairs. At least, that's Gideon's story. Forensics wants to do more investigation, make sure that Gideon didn't help Magenbrot to fall with a push." Megan lifted her shoulders. "Gideon couldn't afford to let Reuben Magenbrot tell his story. It would have ruined him."

"It would have exposed treason," Colby put in. "A capital offense. Good reason to kill a witness." He looked around. "Where's Charlie? Doesn't the dude want to hear this?"

Don got a cat-eating-canary expression on his face. "He's teaching."

"Is not. I saw his car outside. He's here at the house, man."

"He's in the garage." Don's face didn't change, though the smile got broader.

"All right, I'll bite." David offered a hand to Colby to help the man out of the comfortable chair. "You coming?"

"I suppose." Colby took the hand, tried not to groan while getting up.

Don too gingerly stood up, allowing both his father and Megan to keep him upright. Only the thought of the impending scene made him keep going, hand clutched to his side. "Keep it down, guys. You know how Charlie hates to have class interrupted."

They trooped out to the garage, going at Don's and Colby's slow pace. Megan opened the door.

Charlie was there, a white bandage covering the healing slice on his neck, in front of his beloved white board. The board was covered with several different colors, and a marker was in Charlie's hand adding to the equations already in existence. Light streamed in through the window, casting a triangle of white onto one corner of the white board. Charlie himself was dancing back and forth along the board, explaining the details of the equations to his students.

Those 'students' were seated around the edge of the room, most sitting on crates but one or two were lucky enough to have scored a folding chair. Every one of them held a pad of paper with some sort of writing implement: a pencil here, one with a pen with a feather floating out of the top, one even struggling to make a purple crayon write clearly. Two of the students were well-known to the FBI agents: Nancy and Darren.

"So this is what a fraction is," Charlie was saying. "We break the big number up into the number of pieces that this lower number tells us to. Here we have the fraction one-fourth. The bottom number under the line is four, so we break this big number on this side of the equation into four parts. The big number here is eight. How many do we have in each part of the eight if we have four parts? Nancy?"

"Two," she said proudly.

"Very good," Charlie complimented her. Nancy beamed. Charlie looked up, saw the visitors to his 'class.' "Hi, guys. Want to join in?"

"'Mr. Math Professor' is teaching us math," Darren informed the FBI agents solemnly.

"Ben wanted to learn math," Nancy added. "Ben wanted to get smart."

"We all want to get smart," another one chimed in. "We all want to learn math."

Charlie shrugged, trying to hide a pleased smile. He spread his hands wide. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for anyone who loves numbers."

The End.


End file.
